Select bibliography on popular narrative lore in the ancient world (Greece, Rome, and the Near East). (original) (raw)
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Folklore exists in all human groups, small and big. Since early modernity, scholars have provided various definitions of the phenomenon, but earlier texts may also reveal awareness and reflection on the specific character folklore. In this short article, we wish to explore and look into the various definitions and characterizations of folklore given by ancient writers from various times and cultures. We will try to draw a cultural map of awareness to the phenomenon of folklore in ancient Near-Eastern texts, Greco-Roman culture, the Hebrew Bible, Early Christianity and Rabbinic literature. The main questions we wish do deal with are where and if we can find explicit mention of folklore; which folk genres are dominant in ancient writings and what was the social context of ancient folklore? That is to say, whom those text integrated in social frameworks, enabling their users to gain power or to undermine existing cultural, theological and social structures.
vi] unfrequently of alarm. For instance, when they heard the awful roar of thunder, and saw vivid flashes of lightning, accompanied by black clouds and torrents of rain, they believed that the great god of heaven was angry, and they trembled at his wrath. If the calm and tranquil sea became suddenly agitated, and the crested billows rose mountains high, dashing furiously against the rocks, and threatening destruction to all within their reach, the sea-god was supposed to be in a furious rage. When they beheld the sky glowing with the hues of coming day they thought that the goddess of the dawn, with rosy fingers, was drawing aside the dark veil of night, to allow her brother, the sun-god, to enter upon his brilliant career. Thus personifying all the powers of nature, this very imaginative and highly poetical nation beheld a divinity in every tree that grew, in every stream that flowed, in the bright beams of the glorious sun, and the clear, cold rays of the silvery moon; for them the whole universe lived and breathed, peopled by a thousand forms of grace and beauty.
Ancient Greece and the Near East: Literature, fiction, mythopoeia. An introductory course.
This is the summary presentation for a small course on the relations between ancient Greece and the Near-Eastern cultures, concerning in particular the domain of narrative literature and mythopoeia. A survey is provided of the main areas in which ancient Near-Eastern civilisations influenced the Greek mythology and literary production, from the Archaic age onwards. In particular, emphasis is placed on the following topics: - The Sumerian epics (the war on Aratta, the cycle of Bilgames) and the themes of the Homeric epic tradition (Iliad, Odyssey). The great war against a rich fortified city and the adventurous hero, who roams around the world and gathers profound wisdom, are the two perennial themes of epic. - The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh as an intertext of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The hero Gilgamesh provides a Mesopotamian analogue both of Achilles and of Odysseus. - The transmission of the Mesopotamian texts on Gilgamesh (from the Sumerian epics to the Standard Babylonian epic) offers a parallel and analogue to the relations of the Homeric compositions with their oral precedents in the early Greek epic tradition. In particular, the development of the Mesopotamian epic cycle documents fully in written form the processes which the Neoanalysis hypothesises for the Homeric tradition. - The Sumerian fables and the Greek Aesopic fables. Select parallels are presented. - The Hittite mythical cycle of Kumarbi and the Hesiodic Theogony. The Hittite myths of succession and antagonism between Kumarbi and the younger generation of gods present many parallels with the Greek myths of Cronus, Zeus, and the contests of the Olympian gods against various monsters. - The ancient Egyptian tradition of literary fiction and the Greek novel. The age-old Egyptian corpus of fictional narratives, beginning from the Middle Kingdom and continuing until the end of the Egyptian civilisation in late Roman times, clearly exercised some influence on the formation of the Greek novel in the Hellenistic age. The great variety of genres of Egyptian fiction (realistic adventure tales, travelogues, fantastic and magical tales, historical novellas) is reflected in the multifarious forms of Greek novelistic fiction.
ANCIENT NARRATIVE Supplementum 23
2020
of a large audience of students and colleagues. I am indebted to all for coming to the event and for contributing to the informative discussion-sessions. The chapters comprising this volume are revised versions of most of the papers which were delivered at the conference. I would like to thank Michael Paschalis and Costas Panayotakis for our cooperation in the publication of this volume, and also our publisher, Roelf Barkhuis, for producing-yet again-a splendid Ancient Narrative Supplementum. Stelios Panayotakis Calasiris as a 'servus callidus', 134 death of-, 136 Callirhoe as a tragic heroine, 28 elite status of-, 7, 41 Callirhoe and Artaxates, 48 Callirhoe and Dionysius, 40 Callirhoe and Plangon, 44, 128 Callirhoe enslaved not a 'real' slave, 40 capillatus, 192 captivity ~ slavery,