GREEK LITERATURE

This class is integrated in the disciplines characterizing the course in 'Ancient Civilizations: Literatures, History and Archaeology‘.
The many voices of Greek poetry from the classical to the Hellenistic age’. The class, which runs once a week in the second and third modules of the academic year, aims at providing the students with a reading and interpretation of various poetic texts of the classical, pre-Hellenistic and Hellenistic age from the fifth to the first century BCE, which are meant to represent the variety of poetic genres in that period: epic and elegiac poetry, epigrams, hymns, encomia, epinicia, epyllia and poems of other kinds such as inscriptional epigrams. The class is mainly addressed to students graduating in Greek literature, in classical philology, in Latin literature, ancient history and classical archaeology. Every year new authors and new texts will be read and commented upon with the students, with a focus placed on text preserved on papyri and/or handed down through Medieval manuscripts.

The class is intended for students who are already familiar both with Greek language and with the history and genres of Ancient Greek literature. After attending the class and preparing for the examen students will have acquired a broad perspective and the cultural competence which will enable them to comprehend a historical period and a blend of literary genres of primary importance for Greek as well as for Western civilization. Students will acquire skills that will enable them:
- to know the development of Greek poetry from the archaic to the Alexandrian age, to tell the main features, the innovations, experimentation and the invariants
- to show familiarity with the main critical editions of the texts dealt with and with the main representatives of Hellenistic literature in particular
- to show familiarity with manuscript tradition and with the transmission of texts on papyrus
- to display familiarity with the problems regarding the edition and commentary especially of fragmentary texts

As regards the knowledge and comprehension skills, students will be able:
- to understand the texts and the textual problems they offer, along with problems related to subject matter
- to translate the text into Italian by displaying full awareness of the literary style and sophisticated level of language of the authors
- to comment on the texts and focus on the dialect, linguistic and stylistic features, and also be aware of their debt towards tradition
- to gauge the value and motivation of variants in the apparatus of the edition of the texts

Regarding their skill in evaluating the texts, students are required to prove:
- they can comment on the critical apparatus and textual choices of an editor and on all the problems pertaining to the subject
- to grasp the multilayered complexity of the text and of the intention of the author, such as irony, polemics, or deliberate allusion and intertextuality

Regarding the communication skills, students will prove, by means also of a final paper on a specific text they will present at the end of the year, they can produce a commentary, present it and discuss it in a public performance.
Regarding their learning, they will have to prove they have acquired the technicque in exegesis and interpretation which are of primary importance in approaching and reading the problems and authors of Greek classical and Hellenistic poetry

The class is intended for students with a good knowledge of Greek grammar and language, who are already familiar with Greek hexameter, elegiac and iambic poetry. In order to improve their familiarity with these metres and the reading of the texts the students are recommended to attend an introduction to Greek metrics which will be provided in the course of the year.

‘The many voices of Greek poetry from the classical to the Hellenistic age’.. The class focuses on the many voices of Hellenistic poetry from the the third to the first cent BCE, including the preHellenistic antecedents (Antimachus, Cleanthes, Alexander Aetolus, Aratus, Theocritus, Callimachus, Lycophron, Apollonius Rhodius, Hermesianax, Euphorion, Moschus, Bion, Phanocles): a metrical reading with a translation and a literary and philological commentary of various texts (ranging from elegies to epigrams, hymns, epyllia etc.) will be provided. The fragmentary nature and the complex textual tradition of no small number of texts will also require to deal with philological and textual problems, along with a literary evaluation of the texts, and with an eye to the the lore of the past poetic tradition. The seminal role of some poets also in the field of scholarship and classification of the whole bulk of Greek literature will bring in an analysis of the formation of libraries and the importance of the Alexandrian and Pergamon libraries.

All texts will be provided by the faculty. Students are required to read two articles or chapters of books from the 'Readings' section.

Texts: J. U. Powell (ed.), Collectanea Alexandrina (323-146 A.C.), Oxford 1925; H. Lloyd-Jones et P.J. Parsons (edd.), Supplementum Hellenisticum, Berlin 1983; R. Pfeiffer (ed.), Callimachus. Vol. I: Fragmenta. Vol. II: Hymni et Epigrammata, Oxford 1949-1953; A.S.F. Gow, Bucolici Graeci, Oxford 1952; C. Gallavotti (ed.), Theocritus quique feruntur bucolici Graeci, 3a ed., Roma 1993;J. L. Lightfoot, Hellenistic Collection (2009, Loeb Classical Library, with trans.); David Sider, Hellenistic Poetry. A Selection, Univ. of Michigan Press 2016..
Translations: G.B. D'Alessio, Callimaco, BUR 2008, 4a ed., 2 voll.; Apollonio Rodio, Le Argonautiche, BUR 1986; Teocrito, Idilli e epigrammi a cura di B.M. Palumbo Stracca, BUR 1993; O. Vox, Carmi di Teocrito e dei bucolici greci minori, Torino 1997; B. Acosta-Hughes, Chr. Cusset, Euphorion. Oeuvre poétique et autres fragments, Paris 2012.

Readings: A.W. Bulloch ‘Poesia ellenistica’, in P. Easterling-B. Knox (a cura di), La letteratura greca della Cambridge University, Vol. II, Milano 1990, 225-363; G. Cambiano, L. Canfora & D. Lanza (edd.), Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica. Vol. 2: L’ellenismo, Roma 1993; J. Clauss, M. Cuypers (edd.), Blackwell Companion to Hellenistic Literature, Chichester & Malden 2010; M.A. Harder-R.F. Regtuit- G.C. Wakker (edd.), Callimachus, Groningen: Forsten, 1993; B. Acosta-Hughes, L. Lehnus & S. Stephens (edd.). Brill's Companion to Callimachus. Leiden 2011; G.O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry, Oxford 1988; M. Fantuzzi, R. Hunter, Muse e modelli. La poesia ellenistica da Alessandro Magno ad Augusto, Bari 2002; K. J. Gutzwiller, A Guide to Hellenistic Literature, Chichester 2008.

Syllabus for students unable to attend the course: Callimaco, Inno ad Apollo; Inno a Demetra; epigrammi 1,2, 6, 17, 18, 23, 27; Teocrito, Idilli 16, 18; Apollonio Rodio, libro 4.1-510. Per i commenti ved. N. Hopkinson, A Hellenistic Anthology, Cambridge 1988; R. L. Hunter, Apollonius of Rhodes: "Argonautica" Book IV, Cambridge 2015; E. Livrea, Apolloni Rhodii Argonautica IV, Firenze 1973; A. S. F. Gow, Theocritus. Ed. with a transl. and comm., 2 vols., Cambridge 1952; F. Williams, Callimachus. Hymn to Apollo, Oxford 1978; N. Hopkinson, Callimachus. Hymn to Demeter, Cambridge 1984.

The students' competence in the class of Greek Literature 'magistrale' will be tested through an oral examination, consisting in a number of questions, such as a) a metrical reading, translation and literary-philological commentary of a few passages from the texts dealt with, as indicated in the program, b) further questions will concern the history of Hellenistic literature and the two essays to be selected from the readings, and to be agreed upon previously. A photocopy of all texts will be provided by the faculty, who will also care to provide in class a translation and a commentary of most poems. At the end of the year students are requested to present a short paper, consisting in an analysis of a short poem or epigram, to be presented in class; as an alternative, they may choose to present a short paper focusing on a topic agreed upon with the faculty, dealing with a myth or with literary or philological or anthropological themes.

Traditional teacher-led classes, with a seminar oriented approach. At the end of the year students are requested to present a short paper, consisting in an analysis of a short poem or epigram, to be presented in class; as an alternative, they may choose to present a short paper focusing on a topic agreed upon with the faculty, dealing with a myth or with literary or philological or anthropological themes.

Italian

Attendance of the class is strongly recommended. Students graduating in archaeology or intending to take up Modern Greek Literature are also entitled to work out a different programme.

Along with this class students are invited to participate in the Venice seminars of Scienze dell'Antichità, which are articulated in a number of initiatives in the span of the academic year. Participation in 5 seminars together with the writing of a short essay is rated 1CFU (credits), to go in the apprenticeship activities.

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