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This paper describes the derivational history of Attic Greek θεάομαι ‘to see’ and associated word... more This paper describes the derivational history of Attic Greek θεάομαι ‘to see’ and associated words. After synchronically analyzing the Greek data, it will attempt to connect the verbal root underlying the Greek forms, *dheH2u, to a verbal root of sight attested primarily in Indo-Iranian languages, *dheiH2.
Despite the lack of poetic competition within the narrative of the Iliad, the relationship betwee... more Despite the lack of poetic competition within the narrative of the Iliad, the relationship between the funeral games of Patroclus in book 23 and those of Anchises in Aeneid 5 has frequently been analyzed in (meta-) poetically agonistic terms (Sens, Dunkle, Uden). That Virgil uses the narrative occasion of athletic competition as a stage for aemulatio with his most famous epic predecessor is a metaphorical conflation of the diachronic competition between epic poets and the horizontal competition between the competitors in the narrative. This paper will begin by arguing that Virgil's choice to use funeral games as an occasion for poetic aemulatio is a commentary on an implicit function of the funeral games of the Iliad and their relationship to other traditions of early Greek hexametric poetry. There is a long tradition of analyzing the games of book 23 in terms of their allusions to characters and themes that are "cyclic" (Whitman, Kullmann, Willcock, Dowden). This paper posits that the presence of complex referentiality in the funeral games to poetic traditions outside of the Iliad reveals a strategy of the Iliadic tradition (Elmer). In short, there is poetic competition in the Iliad, but it is metaphorical. Specifically, Achilles' role as representative of the Iliad (Martin), and his organization and adjudication of the games and their competitors, present the Iliad as a dominant tradition within a diverse environment of hexametric poetic competition. Through Achilles' authority, the poem presents itself as coopting and normalizing poetic divergence. This is in line with the idea that an absence of overt poetic competition in the Iliad reflects a strategy to efface elements of the performative, agonistic origins of early hexametric poetry (Ford); tellingly, the only explicit case of poetic competition is that of Thamyris and the Muses, narrated in an aside during the catalog (2.594-600), and representing a vertical competition between poet and goddesses of poetry where the former is punished for hubris. This paper will discuss the chariot race's relationship to the plot of the first 18 books of the Iliad, the footrace's evocation of themes from the Nostoi, the wrestling match's significance in terms of the Little Iliad, and the final events' resonances with the Aithiopis. Finally, we will return to the funeral games of Anchises and contextualize elements of Virgil's narrative in terms of their Iliadic intertexts, with the conclusion that at least according to Virgil, the Iliad contains a previously unacknowledged depiction of Achilles' death.
Papers by Alexander Forte
Helios, 2020
publishes articles that explore innovative approaches to the study of classical culture, literatu... more publishes articles that explore innovative approaches to the study of classical culture, literature, and society. Especially welcome are articles that embrace contemporary critical methodologies, such as anthropological, deconstructive, feminist, reader response, social history, and text theory. Authors are encouraged to send an electronic copy of their paper (preferably as a PDF file) to the editor.
Classical Philology, 2019
Link: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/700618 This article argues that a signi... more Link: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/700618
This article argues that a significant portion of the chariot race in the funeral games of Iliad 23 occurs at the turn in the track. The ancient scholarly tradition is concordant with this analysis; however, recent scholarship has largely dismissed this scenario due to a common mistranslation of spatiotemporal language.
The similarity of the chariot imagery in Parmenides and Kaṭha Upaniṣad has tempted some scholars ... more The similarity of the chariot imagery in Parmenides and Kaṭha Upaniṣad has tempted some scholars into hypothesizing a contact scenario between early Greek and Indic philosophy. Our research, however, demonstrates that the genealogy of this imagery is best explained through local intertext: the Iliad and the Vedas respectively. The concentration of similarities between Iliad 23 and the text of Parmenides suggests that the philosopher is engaging specifically with the chariot race during Patroclus' funeral games, which also serves as a source of philosophical material for Empedocles and includes the locus classicus for Socratic ἐπαγωγή. The chariot in Kaṭha Upaniṣad is a metaphor for the sacrifice, specifically the fire altar; its imagery is a redeployment of the chariot imagery and narrative setting used in the earlier Kaṭha Brāhmaṇa. We argue that understanding the metaphysics of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad is only possible when contextualized as a component of a hieratic canon. Once these commitments are recognized, it becomes apparent that Parmenides’ poem and the Kaṭha Upaniṣad have distinct antecedents and discursive agendas.
American Journal of Philology, Mar 2015
In this version, some minor typos have been corrected. They do not alter the argument of the arti... more In this version, some minor typos have been corrected. They do not alter the argument of the article.
Dissertation by Alexander Forte
This dissertation treats metaphor in the Homeric poems from both cognitive and historical linguis... more This dissertation treats metaphor in the Homeric poems from both cognitive and historical linguistic perspectives.
Conference Presentations by Alexander Forte
Drafts by Alexander Forte
“The Cognitive Linguistics of Homeric Surprise.” In The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Cognitive Theory. P. Meineck, W. Short, and J. Devereaux (eds.). Routledge, 39–58.
Books by Alexander Forte
by Jennifer Devereaux, William M Short, Peter Meineck, Alexander Forte, Laura Candiotto, Maria Gerolemou, Jacob L. Mackey, Jessica M Romney, Sarah Olsen, Anna Bonifazi, Elizabeth Minchin, Alessandro Vatri, Anne-Sophie J Noel, and Antonis Tsakmakis
The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Cognitive Theory is an interdisciplinary volume that exami... more The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Cognitive Theory is an interdisciplinary volume that examines the application of cognitive theory to the study of the classical world, across several interrelated areas including linguistics, literary theory, social practices, performance, artificial intelligence and archaeology. With contributions from a diverse group of international scholars working in this exciting new area, the volume explores the processes of the mind drawing from research in psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology, and interrogates the implications of these new approaches for the study of the ancient world.
Topics covered in this wide-ranging collection include: cognitive linguistics applied to Homeric and early Greek texts, Roman cultural semantics, linguistic embodiment in Latin literature, group identities in Greek lyric, cognitive dissonance in historiography, kinesthetic empathy in Sappho, artificial intelligence in Hesiod and Greek drama, the enactivism of Roman statues and memory and art in the Roman Empire.
This ground-breaking work is the first to organize the field, allowing both scholars and students access to the methodologies, bibliographies and techniques of the cognitive sciences and how they have been applied to classics.
This paper describes the derivational history of Attic Greek θεάομαι ‘to see’ and associated word... more This paper describes the derivational history of Attic Greek θεάομαι ‘to see’ and associated words. After synchronically analyzing the Greek data, it will attempt to connect the verbal root underlying the Greek forms, *dheH2u, to a verbal root of sight attested primarily in Indo-Iranian languages, *dheiH2.
Despite the lack of poetic competition within the narrative of the Iliad, the relationship betwee... more Despite the lack of poetic competition within the narrative of the Iliad, the relationship between the funeral games of Patroclus in book 23 and those of Anchises in Aeneid 5 has frequently been analyzed in (meta-) poetically agonistic terms (Sens, Dunkle, Uden). That Virgil uses the narrative occasion of athletic competition as a stage for aemulatio with his most famous epic predecessor is a metaphorical conflation of the diachronic competition between epic poets and the horizontal competition between the competitors in the narrative. This paper will begin by arguing that Virgil's choice to use funeral games as an occasion for poetic aemulatio is a commentary on an implicit function of the funeral games of the Iliad and their relationship to other traditions of early Greek hexametric poetry. There is a long tradition of analyzing the games of book 23 in terms of their allusions to characters and themes that are "cyclic" (Whitman, Kullmann, Willcock, Dowden). This paper posits that the presence of complex referentiality in the funeral games to poetic traditions outside of the Iliad reveals a strategy of the Iliadic tradition (Elmer). In short, there is poetic competition in the Iliad, but it is metaphorical. Specifically, Achilles' role as representative of the Iliad (Martin), and his organization and adjudication of the games and their competitors, present the Iliad as a dominant tradition within a diverse environment of hexametric poetic competition. Through Achilles' authority, the poem presents itself as coopting and normalizing poetic divergence. This is in line with the idea that an absence of overt poetic competition in the Iliad reflects a strategy to efface elements of the performative, agonistic origins of early hexametric poetry (Ford); tellingly, the only explicit case of poetic competition is that of Thamyris and the Muses, narrated in an aside during the catalog (2.594-600), and representing a vertical competition between poet and goddesses of poetry where the former is punished for hubris. This paper will discuss the chariot race's relationship to the plot of the first 18 books of the Iliad, the footrace's evocation of themes from the Nostoi, the wrestling match's significance in terms of the Little Iliad, and the final events' resonances with the Aithiopis. Finally, we will return to the funeral games of Anchises and contextualize elements of Virgil's narrative in terms of their Iliadic intertexts, with the conclusion that at least according to Virgil, the Iliad contains a previously unacknowledged depiction of Achilles' death.
Helios, 2020
publishes articles that explore innovative approaches to the study of classical culture, literatu... more publishes articles that explore innovative approaches to the study of classical culture, literature, and society. Especially welcome are articles that embrace contemporary critical methodologies, such as anthropological, deconstructive, feminist, reader response, social history, and text theory. Authors are encouraged to send an electronic copy of their paper (preferably as a PDF file) to the editor.
Classical Philology, 2019
Link: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/700618 This article argues that a signi... more Link: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/700618
This article argues that a significant portion of the chariot race in the funeral games of Iliad 23 occurs at the turn in the track. The ancient scholarly tradition is concordant with this analysis; however, recent scholarship has largely dismissed this scenario due to a common mistranslation of spatiotemporal language.
The similarity of the chariot imagery in Parmenides and Kaṭha Upaniṣad has tempted some scholars ... more The similarity of the chariot imagery in Parmenides and Kaṭha Upaniṣad has tempted some scholars into hypothesizing a contact scenario between early Greek and Indic philosophy. Our research, however, demonstrates that the genealogy of this imagery is best explained through local intertext: the Iliad and the Vedas respectively. The concentration of similarities between Iliad 23 and the text of Parmenides suggests that the philosopher is engaging specifically with the chariot race during Patroclus' funeral games, which also serves as a source of philosophical material for Empedocles and includes the locus classicus for Socratic ἐπαγωγή. The chariot in Kaṭha Upaniṣad is a metaphor for the sacrifice, specifically the fire altar; its imagery is a redeployment of the chariot imagery and narrative setting used in the earlier Kaṭha Brāhmaṇa. We argue that understanding the metaphysics of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad is only possible when contextualized as a component of a hieratic canon. Once these commitments are recognized, it becomes apparent that Parmenides’ poem and the Kaṭha Upaniṣad have distinct antecedents and discursive agendas.
American Journal of Philology, Mar 2015
In this version, some minor typos have been corrected. They do not alter the argument of the arti... more In this version, some minor typos have been corrected. They do not alter the argument of the article.
This dissertation treats metaphor in the Homeric poems from both cognitive and historical linguis... more This dissertation treats metaphor in the Homeric poems from both cognitive and historical linguistic perspectives.
“The Cognitive Linguistics of Homeric Surprise.” In The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Cognitive Theory. P. Meineck, W. Short, and J. Devereaux (eds.). Routledge, 39–58.
by Jennifer Devereaux, William M Short, Peter Meineck, Alexander Forte, Laura Candiotto, Maria Gerolemou, Jacob L. Mackey, Jessica M Romney, Sarah Olsen, Anna Bonifazi, Elizabeth Minchin, Alessandro Vatri, Anne-Sophie J Noel, and Antonis Tsakmakis
The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Cognitive Theory is an interdisciplinary volume that exami... more The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Cognitive Theory is an interdisciplinary volume that examines the application of cognitive theory to the study of the classical world, across several interrelated areas including linguistics, literary theory, social practices, performance, artificial intelligence and archaeology. With contributions from a diverse group of international scholars working in this exciting new area, the volume explores the processes of the mind drawing from research in psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology, and interrogates the implications of these new approaches for the study of the ancient world.
Topics covered in this wide-ranging collection include: cognitive linguistics applied to Homeric and early Greek texts, Roman cultural semantics, linguistic embodiment in Latin literature, group identities in Greek lyric, cognitive dissonance in historiography, kinesthetic empathy in Sappho, artificial intelligence in Hesiod and Greek drama, the enactivism of Roman statues and memory and art in the Roman Empire.
This ground-breaking work is the first to organize the field, allowing both scholars and students access to the methodologies, bibliographies and techniques of the cognitive sciences and how they have been applied to classics.