Year: 2015

RepiTitationes ~ 04/28/25

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Always in catchup mode:

http://twitter.com/rogueclassicist/status/592981809262133248
http://twitter.com/rogueclassicist/status/592982121796501505

http://twitter.com/rogueclassicist/status/593113987484516352

http://twitter.com/rogueclassicist/status/593124380760154114

http://twitter.com/rogueclassicist/status/593163670005362690

http://twitter.com/rogueclassicist/status/593164748801372160
http://twitter.com/rogueclassicist/status/593164810914811904

http://twitter.com/rogueclassicist/status/593168022791127040
http://twitter.com/rogueclassicist/status/593168341331779584

CJ~Online 2015.05.10 Polt on Stevens, Silence in Catullus

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

CJ-Online ~ 2015.05.10

Silence in Catullus. By Benjamin Eldon Stevens. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013. Pp. x + 338. Paper, $34.95. ISBN: 978-0-299-29664-3.

Reviewed by Christopher B. Polt, University of South Florida (cpolt)

"Silence" is not the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Catullus’ poetry, where even the beds shout and the doors gossip, but Benjamin Stevens’ Silence in Catullus suggests that the gaps in Catullan speech not only are significant but constitute a "poetics of silence" that reveals how much humans depend on the constant chatter of language for their very existence. Stevens’ readings are frequently insightful, drawing innovative connections between familiar poems and those either less studied (e.g. the Gellius cycle) or too often viewed in isolation from the rest of the corpus (e.g. the poems on the brother’s death). The book’s style is somewhat convoluted and the desultory way Stevens moves between relevant theoretical work can at times be daunting, but patient readers will find much of value and interest in Stevens’ work, which contributes to many ongoing discussions in Catullan studies. […]

καὶ τὰ λοιπά​:

15.05.11 Greek Mythologies: Antiquity and Surrealism​

BMCR 2015.05.41 Zeiner-Carmichael on Whitton, Pliny the Younger: Epistles, Book II

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2015.05.41

Christopher Whitton, Pliny the Younger: Epistles, Book II. Cambridge Greek and Latin classics. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xiii, 328. ISBN 9780521187275. $34.99 (pb).

Reviewed by Noelle Zeiner-Carmichael, College of Charleston, SC (carmichaeln​ AT ​
cofc.edu)

Christopher Whitton’s commentary on Pliny’s Epistles 2 reinforces the growing scholarly tendency to read the Epistles in sequence and to appreciate individual books as distinct literary units (e.g., Whitton 2010; Gibson and Morello 2012). Whitton’s volume rejects previous anthologizing approaches, instead focusing on the twenty letters of Epistles 2, the shortest book of the collection. As stated in the Preface, the volume aims to “help readers construe Pliny’s Latin, to situate his work in a historical (and scholarly) context and to offer a literary interpretation” (p. vii). Whitton’s chief contribution lies in the third goal, whereby attention to Pliny’s structural engineering provides readers an opportunity to appreciate fully the artistry of Book 2and, as well, the entire corpus of Epistles. The return of individual letters to their books and to the whole collection, Whitton notes, “is not only to pay due respect to the integrity of an aesthetically arranged work of art,​ ​
it is essential to an appreciation of it” (pp. 12-13). Whitton’s volume admirably achieves this objective, offering a welcome resource for students and scholars alike, both of whom will benefit from the author’s philological expertise and interpretative insight.​ […]

​καὶ τὰ λοιπά:
BMCR 2015.05.41 (http://www.bmcreview.org/2015/05/20150541.html) on the BMCR blog

Seen on various lists ~ Digital Classicist London seminar: webcast link

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

From Gabriel Bodard:

Dear colleagues,

With apologies for cross-posting: for the first time this year, the Digital Classicist London seminars will be live-cast via the Web, so colleagues who are unable to make it to the events themselves at 16:30 (BST) on a Friday afternoon, can watch and listen along at the DCLS YouTube channel at:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIamtu1Z62wL5XRk2mE8HKw

or watch the edited video which will appear in the same page a few days later.

For those who need a reminder, the seminars run every Friday afternoon in June – August in the Institute for Classical Studies, and this year’s programme can be found at:

http://www.digitalclassicist.org/wip/wip2015.html

I hope to see many of you there, in person or via the network!

BMCR 2015.05.42 Dyck on Gelzer, Cicero: ein biographischer Versuch. 2.

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

From BMCR:

Matthias Gelzer, Cicero: ein biographischer Versuch. 2., erweiterte Auflage mit einer forschungsgeschichtlichen Einleitung und einer Ergänzungsbibliographie von Werner Riess (first published 1969). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2014. Pp. xxvii, 407. ISBN 9783515099035. €39.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Andrew R. Dyck, Los Angeles (jmf_dyck​ AT ​
hotmail.com)

[The Table of Contents is listed below.]

The Foreword explains that this is the third of Gelzer’s biographies to be issued in a new edition, the biographies of Pompey (2005, ed. E. Herrmann-Otto) and Caesar (2008, ed. E. Baltrusch) having preceded. The Intoduction places Gelzer within the history of scholarship, beginning with a biographical sketch from his birth as son of a Protestant pastor in Liestal, Switzerland, his studies in Basel and Leipzig, where he produced a dissertation on Byzantine administration in Egypt (1907), and Habilitation in Freiburg with the pioneering study of the Roman nobility.1 (#n1) There followed his call to Greifswald and acceptance of German citizenship in 1915, his brief tenure of a professorship in Strasbourg prior to the end of the Great War, and his call to Frankfurt/M. (1919), where he taught until retirement in 1955 and died in 1974.

Biography is a genre of which readers (and therefore publishers) are fond, whereas historians are usually not keen on writing about the lives of individuals. Gelzer’s shift to biography thus calls for explanation. Riess emphasizes that he made the move under the influence of the Pauly-Wissowa Realenzyklopädie, for which he wrote a series of important articles (p.XI). Christ, on the other hand, connects it with the political and intellectual caesura in Germany in the aftermath of the Great War.2 (#n2) The change of genre conceals, however, a continuing interest in the social dimension. Thus Gelzer insists that such figures as Lucullus and Brutus need to be seen against the background of the noble families from which they sprang.​ […]​

καὶ τὰ λοιπά:

BMCR 2015.05.42 (http://www.bmcreview.org/2015/05/20150542.html) on the BMCR blog