Emotions and Narrative in Ancient Literature and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Irene de Jong. (TOC) (original) (raw)
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The Paradox of Literary Emotion: An Ancient Greek Perspective and Some Modern Implications
Nuntius Antiquus, 2018
Fifth-century BCE Greek writers (e.g., Isocrates, Pseudo-Andocides) complain that the Athenians might have been more deeply moved by tragedies than by horrific contemporary events. My essay suggests that literary narratives could indeed produce this effect on us through several features. (1) The feeling of personal safety, threatened sometimes by our showing compassion to others (e.g. Euripides’ plays, Thucydides; modern refugee debates) remains intact when we engage in fiction. (2) The proximity to literary characters becomes enhanced by literary narratives (pro ommaton, focalization), in contrast to impersonal journalistic reports. (3) The universality ascribed to a literary piece (Aristotle’s Poetics) could contribute to our emotional immersion into the world of fiction to the detriment of the surrounding reality. While each section starts from ancient Greek authors, the essay will underline some similarities between the classical and the modern ways of engaging with literary nar...
The study of emotions has emerged as one of the most dynamic topics of research in Ancient History, Classics, and Archaeology. Studying a variety of sources (historiography, Greek and Latin poetry and oratory, the New Testament, inscriptions, medical authors, Greek vase-painting and sculpture, skeletal remains) and using different methodological approaches, the authors of this volume address a selection of questions related with the study of emotions in Greek and Roman culture: the representation of emotion in literature and art; the arousal of emotion through texts and images; the expression of emotion through metaphor and metonymy; the display of emotions in rituals; intellectual discourse concerning specific emotions (pride, grief, fear); emotional communities; and the importance of emotions in public life, value systems, and social relations. Contents M. Tamiolaki: Emotions and historical representation in Xenophon’s Hellenika. A. Chaniotis: Emotional display, empathy, theatricality, and illusion in Hellenistic historiography. D. Cairns: A short history of shudders. M. Patera: Reflections on the discourse of fear in Greek sources. L. Rubinstein: Evoking anger through pity: portraits of the vulnerable and defenceless in Attic oratory. N. Kanavou: ‘Negative’ emotions and Greek names. T. Morgan: Is pistis/fides experuienced as an emotion in the Late Roman Republic, early Principate, and early Church? Y. Baraz: Pride in the Roman world. K. Mustakallio: Grief and mourning in Roman context. D. King: Galen and grief: The construction of grief in Galen’s clinical work. O. Bobou: Emotionality in Greek art. J. Masséglia: The relationship between social status and emotional display in Hellenistic Art. C. Bourbou: The imprint of emotions surrounding the death of children in antiquity. O. van Nijf: The emotional regime in the Imperial Greek city.
The History of Emotions and Middle English Literature, Literature Compass 13.6 (2016), 444-456
2016
Critics have long addressed questions of affect, feeling and emotional expression in Middle English literature , but only in recent years has their interest begun to take theoretical form under the rubric of the 'history of emotions'. Current critical attitudes to the study of emotions in the past have been shaped substantially by the work of historians, whose focus on emotion in documentary sources has been inf luenced in turn by research in the fields of sociology, anthropology, psychology, linguistics and, increasingly, the cognitive sciences. How might existing methodologies situating emotions historically drive new approaches in Middle English literary studies? This article contends that existing analyses of Middle English literature relating to affective discourses might fruitfully be brought into conversation with new multidisciplinary forms of research into past emotions. We survey current critical trends in both the history of emotions and in Middle English literature. Case studies of two late Middle English literary texts, the anonymous Sir Orfeo and Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, show how the last fifty years of scholarship has addressed emotions in Middle English literature. We conclude by suggesting future directions that might be taken up by critics of medieval English literary texts and genres to develop further the relationship between literary studies and the history of emotions.