RICERCA ITALIANA     

The Hellenistic greek literature from authorship to audienceship:texts and contexts

Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata"

Abstract

The research project "The Hellenistic Greek literature from authorship to audienceship: texts and contexts" specifically focuses on a well circumscribed span of time in the century-long history of Greek literature: the Hellenistic period.
With literature we not only mean poetry, but the other kinds of literary genres as well, ranging from the philological-scholarly literature to the rhetorical and philosophical ones. What stood the main revolving point in the Hellenistic literature, compared to the Greek literature in the previous centuries, was the change in the relationship between the creating moment of any literary, philological, rhetorical or philosophical work - text - and the environment - context - which that work was both created in and meant for.
We aim at investigating the political, social and cultural contexts to which the authors – poets, philologists and scholars, rhetors and philosophers –, on one hand, and those their works were meant for and the audience, on the other, belonged. We will, thus, pay special attention to the places where most of the literary, rhetoric and philosophic authorship and audienceship would be found in the Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic period: courts and palaces, poetry circles, rhetoric and philosophic schools, libraries.
Since this research project means to look into the relationship between authorship and audienceship not only for the literary-poetical creations, but also for the philological-scholarly, rhetorical and philosophical ones, we resolved that the maximum allowed number of research units, which is five, should be involved in this work. This will allow each single unit to more deeply analyse only one of the various aspects of the research, still featuring, among its members, experts and scholars from all of the different areas of the research. <<<

Principal Investigator

Roberto PRETAGOSTINI Università degli Studi di ROMA "Tor Vergata"

Research Objectives

This research project aims at analysing the Hellenistic literature and its various and varied aspects – from poetry to drama, from philology to rhetoric and philosophy – from a definite point of view: the relationship between authorship and audienceship. In other words said, we are intending to bring forth and publish any research results which may show and explain to which extent the authors – whether poets, philologists, rhetors or philosophers –would exert any influence on, and in turn be influenced by, the context they were working in and for.
At the end of this research project we plan to hold a congress, organized by the unit of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata". This will be the right arena and occasion for the research results gained by each unit to be expounded, by this drawing a general outline of the research work carried out in the two-year period 2005-2007. This outline itself might then serve as starting point to all those scholars who will want to deal with these same issues. Furthermore, this research project aims at bringing fort and issuing publications both of wider - e.g. commentated editions, commentaries, critical essays, monographs on specific authors or works -, and of more specialized range – e.g. papers and articles, about specific issues or aspects related to a single topic, to be published in the most renowned journals, inland and abroad. Still, in accomplishing the aim of this research program, we will not fail to compare the Hellenistic Greek literature with the ancient and classical one, especially for what concerns the rethinking of literary genres and the way they changed in consideration of the relationship among the authors, on one side, and those their works were meant for and the audience, on the other.
Among the most relevant results we aim at getting to, we might mention a monograph on some of the Alexandrian authors (Callimachus, Theocritus, Apollonius Rhodius) and, in particular, on their relationship to King Ptolemy' s court, and a study about the evolution of literary genres during the Hellenistic age. We are also planning to publish a series of monographs on the Hellenistic exegesis on Archilochus, on the Ps. Hesiod Shield and on some "contemporary" authors, such as Callimachus, for example. Of this latter author we expect to publish also a commentated edition of books III and IV of Aitia, which will follow the already published edition of books I and II (by G. Massimilla, Pisa 1996). Concerning our research project on drama, we plan to publish a monograph on Antiphanes and a study on the fragments of Menander's Samia. For the philosophy and rhetoric area, an expected essay on Plato's Menexenes will try to sort out the come-about of an understanding of literary creation which, after Aristotle's one, would have remarkable developments. Finally, regarding the properly called philological-grammatical field, the research project intends to augment, update and perfect the electronic database "Lexicon of Ancient Greek Grammarians" (LGGA) up to 541 index-cards, that is one index-card for each of the grammarians taken in consideration until now. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

In recent years, the Hellenistic literature has aroused considerable interest among many scholars in Italy and abroad, although their research work is attested only to a certain extent within the reach of "bibliographical references".
This current research project takes start from issues and topics specifically related to the Hellenistic age, which have already been investigated during two previous co-financed research projects (COFIN 2001 and COFIN 2003). Thanks to those two projects, major congresses were possible to be held and noteworthy research results, already published or currently in press, were achieved. This research work brought forth an effective and impressive cooperation with some of the most distinguished scholars and researchers in the field of Hellenistic culture from abroad, among whom Richard Hunter, Peter Bing, Antonio Rengakos and Alan Cameron. This sound net of relations serves nowadays research as a ground for a wider and international reach.
Thus, the starting point for this current research project is mainly the huge amount of previously experiences gathered experiences and the actual results of the former and already accomplished researches. Some of these works are well worth mentioning: the two volumes collecting papers from two International congresses on the Hellenistic literature which were both held at the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" in 1997 (R. Pretagostini cur., La letteratura ellenistica, Roma 2000) e in 2003 (R. Pretagostini – E. Dettori curr., La cultura ellenistica. L'opera letteraria e l'esegesi antica, Roma 2004); the volume collecting papers and contributions from the congress "Il papiro di Posidippo un anno dopo" and carrying this same title, edited by G. Bastianini, and A. Casanova (Firenze, 2002); the book "Menandro: cento anni di Papiri", edited by G. Bastianini, and A. Casanova (Firenze, 2004); the two monographs on Philitas of Cos by E. Dettori (Roma 200) and L. Sbardella (Roma 2000); the commented edition of book II of the Mimiambi of Herondas, by L. Di Gregorio (Milano 2004); the book "Muse e modelli" (Roma –Bari 2002) by M. Fantuzzi and R. Hunter.
In the field of philological-grammatical studies, we have to mention the valuable role played by A.Porro in the project "Commentarii et Lexica Graeca in papyris reperta (CLGP)", which led to the publishing of some relevant papyri in the first book of the lexicon (Aeschines-Alcaeus).
More specifically, for what concerns ancient rhetoric, two volumes, both edited by M.S. Celentano, were published: "Ars/Techne. Il manuale tecnico nelle civiltà greca e romana", (Alessandria 2003), and "Skhèma/Figura. Formes et figures chez les anciens. Rhétorique, philosophie, littérature" , (Paris 2004) edited together with P. Chiron and M.P. Noël.
Finally, we have to mention the research work done for the electronic web database "Lessico dei Grammatici Greci Antichi (LGGA)". Its site features a collection of index-cards on those Hellenistic scholars and authors who in various and different manner contributed to the scholarly and philological-grammatical research in the ancient Greek world. The full catalogue of the grammarians listed in currently sums up to 541 index-cards: at he moment, only 101 of these grammarians have a full developed and downloadable index-card. For the rest of them, 424 have a basic index-card , still in progress, which can be requested by the site users via e-mail, while the remaining 16 are just "schedule" and not available yet, but they will be soon. <<<