Human and animal in ancient Greece : empathy and encounter in classical literature
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Human and animal in ancient Greece : empathy and encounter in classical literature
（Library of classical studies, 15）
I.B. Tauris, 2017
Available at / 2 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Bibliography: p. [239]-255
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Animals were omnipresent in the everyday life and the visual arts of classical Greece. In literature, too, they had significant functions.This book discusses the role of animals - both domestic and wild - and mythological hybrid creatures in ancient Greek literature. Challenging the traditional view of the Greek anthropocentrism, the authors provide a nuanced interpretation of the classical relationship to animals. Through a close textual analysis, they highlight the emergence of the perspective of animals in Greek literature. Central to the book's enquiry is the question of empathy: investigating the ways in which ancient Greek authors invited their readers to empathise with non-human counterparts. The book presents case studies on the animal similes in the Iliad, the addresses to animals and nature in Sophocles' Philoctetes, the human-bird hybrids in The Birds by Aristophanes and the animal protagonists of Anyte's epigrams. Throughout, the authors develop an innovative methodology that combines philological and historical analysis with a philosophy of embodiment, or phenomenology of the body.
Shedding new light on how animals were regarded in ancient Greek society, the book will be of interest to classicists, historians, philosophers, literary scholars and all those studying empathy and the human-animal relationship.
Table of Contents
Introduction: ???????? is a Greek Word
PART I READING ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE THROUGH PHENOMENOLOGY
1. Situated Bodies: Embodiment and Empathy
2. Different Aspects of Empathy
3. Viewpoint and Embodiment
4. The Other's Voice Inside Me: Intimacy and Strangeness of Reading
5. The Problem of Historicity
Summary
PART II ANCIENT RHETORICAL STRATEGIES OF EMPATHETIC ENCOUNTER
1. Greek Reflections on Poets and Poetics
2. The "Vividness" of Artwork and Mimesis
3. Pity versus Identification and Engagement
4. Addresses, Apostrophes and Prosopopoeia
Summary
PART III ON HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS IN ANTIQUITY
1. Alterity and Otherness of Animals in Greek Antiquity
2. Interaction, Interplay, and Encounters
3. Metaphorical Animals
4. Greek Anthropocentrism and Anthropomorphism
5. Hybrids and Metamorphoses
Summary
PART IV FOUR CASE STUDIES
1. Animal Similes in Homer's Iliad
2. Sophocles' Philoctetes
3. Aristophanes' Birds
4. Anyte's Epigrams
Summary
Conclusion
by "Nielsen BookData"
