Classical Literature and Philology Commons^™

Women’S Erotic Desires And Perspectives On Marriage In Sappho’S Epithalamia And H.D.’S Hymen, Amanda Kubic

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In her collection Hymen (1921), the modernist poet H.D. engages in a collaborative, composite reception of the archaic Greek lyric poet Sappho. H.D. draws on Sappho as a source of lyric power and lesbian erotic authority, and brings together the various women’s voices and perspectives represented in Sappho’s poems—especially those that have to do with marriage—into her own present poetic moment. As the title Hymen suggests, of particular significance to H.D.’s Sapphic reception work is the genre of the epithalamium, or “wedding song.” Sappho, in her epithalamia, constructs a woman-centered and woman-identified ...

Good Rhetoric From The Classical To The Jesuits; Or On Αγαθός Λόγος, Andrew J. Wells

The Criterion

Labeling rhetoric as ἀγαθός (good) or κακός (bad) might appear subjective. The Jesuit rhetorical tradition suggests otherwise. Once I place the pursuit of eloquentia perfecta within the context of ancient rhetoricians: Socrates, Gorgias, the author of Dissoi Logoi, and Quintillian, I attempt to find a definition for ἀγαθός λόγος (good speech/rhetoric).

A Song Of Arms And Of The Woman: Confronting Cleopatra In The Augustan Era Through The Carmen De Bello Actiaco, Rachel Dubit

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project consists of a translation and literary analysis of the Carmen de Bello Actiaco, a fragmentary Latin epic from the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum. The epic describes the events surrounding the battle of Actium and Octavian's conquest of Egypt. This analysis explores the importance of the Carmen as a product of a distinctly Augustan ideology, regardless of the exact date of its writing. The first chapter addresses the character of Cleopatra VII and how her portrayal is indicative of the contemporary Roman imperialistic conceptualization of Egypt and other foreign territories. The second chapter explores the theme of ...

Satyrs, Syphilis, And Sailors: The Influence Of Gaius Petronius’ Satyricon Liber On Samuel Taylor Coleridge’S “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”, Spencer Fugate

English Honors Projects

For generations, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” has befuddled readers. This project argues that many of its apparent puzzles disappear once we recognize its base text as the Satyricon Liber, Gaius Petronius’ first-century vulgar comedy. Attending to Coleridge’s broader literary corpus alongside images of sexual dysfunction in “The Rime” itself to justify this foundational claim, I then explore how a comic source transforms the reader’s experience of “The Rime” and its criticism. “The Rime” refutes cohesive readings as a horror-poem because it was never intended as pure horror: rather, the poem is Coleridge ...

Guilt In Vergil’S 'Aeneid' And Lucan’S 'Bellum Civile', Michelle Sugar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study is a comparative analysis that focuses on the portrayal of guilt in Vergil’s Aeneid and Lucan’s Bellum Civile. I use Greek and Roman concepts of emotions and modern theories from psychology and psychoanalysis to argue that many of the emotions that seemingly pervade these poems, such as anger and despair, should be read as being partly related to a hero’s experience of guilt. I examine different types of guilt, namely legal and psychological guilt, to better understand how Vergil and Lucan use guilt to develop the emotional landscapes of their poems and how they represent ...

The Death Of Tragedy: Examining Nietzsche’S Return To The Greeks, Brian R. Long

Honors Bachelor of Arts

In what follows, I will demonstrate how necessary the balance between Apollo and Dionysus is, how it exists in tragedy, and how it is destroyed. In my first chapter, I will discuss the Apolline and Dionysian powers, giving some background on Apollo and Dionysus. I will then explore the struggle between the two powers, noting the specific role of the Silenic wisdom. In the second chapter, I will examine several tragedies in light of these two powers, culminating in a discussion of Euripides’ Bacchae. This discussion will demonstrate how the Apolline and Dionysiac powers were at work on the tragic ...

Emblematic Eating: Reading The Feasts Of The Iliad As Models For Social Order, Erin Welty

Senior Theses

This paper analyzes the Iliad’s feast scenes as sites that amplify the sociopolitical and economic tensions that permeate the wider plot of the epic. Through a literary analysis of the major feasting scenes of the Iliad, I show how the epic’s presentation of the dais collectively displays particular emblematic values of social equity and fair distribution of resources that manifests in the formulaic language that repeats in each feast scene and produces a sense of stable social organization. At the same time, however, I display how the narrative contexts of the feasts and the narrative presentation internal to ...

Applying Jung's Archetypes And Theory Of The Collective Unconscious To Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lindsay Covington

Senior Theses

The premise of this thesis is to explore the concepts of Carl Jung’s collective unconscious and archetypes using myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In exploring the archetypes of the Animus, the Mother, the Hero, the Child, the Trickster, and Rebirth through these myths, I aim to demonstrate their relevance to modern psychology by directly connecting them to related psychopathologies as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Behavioral and Mental Disorders V. Through this, the validity of the concept of the collective unconscious will be demonstrated in how the enduring archetypes of stories that are over two thousand ...

Founded Upon Death: A Structural Analysis Of Tacitus' Annales, Nicholas Rudman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Between its abundant murders, executions, and suicides, the Roman historian Tacitus' account of the Julio-Claudian principate, titled the Annales, is filled with death. The reader cannot help but wonder why. This project attempts to provide an answer to this question through a systematic analysis of death scenes within the Annales, arguing that they serve as structural elements around which Tacitus organizes the other elements of his history. The thesis develops this main point through two smaller ones. The first is that death scenes mark points of transition within the Annales, highlighting changes in Rome's balance of power, the introduction ...

Democracy Vs. Liberty: The Telos Of Government, Ryan C. Yeazell

Honors Bachelor of Arts

Democracies are known for being relatively stable and ensuring freedom for their citizens. However, those assumptions are called into question by the various failures of modern democracies to both maintain authority and enshrine liberty. Are the institutional checks and balances failing to prevent some of the expected issues with governments based on popular voting? Or is there some other cause of failure outside of the institutional structures themselves?

To examine these questions, I will be comparing a few examples of failed modern democracies with arguably history’s longest lasting democratic government: the Roman Republic. Although separated by over two thousand ...

Philosophy And Politics Perfected: Aristotle’S Greatness Of Soul Embodied In Plutarch’S Alexander The Great, Raquel Grove

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

In this paper, I examine the value of Aristotle’s “great-souled man” and the narrative structure of Plutarch’s Life of Alexander as political and philosophical exempla designed to lead men to virtue on a large scale. The confusing, apparently contradictory nature of Aristotle’s virtue “greatness of soul” must be read in the context of the Ethics as a deeply political work. Likewise, Plutarch’s description of Alexander the Great demands examination from a narrative, as well as historical, perspective. Despite their differences in emphasis and method, Aristotle and Plutarch produce writings characterized the same end––each work unites ...

Mysteries Of Paradise Revealed & Concealed, Brittany Bryant

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

No abstract provided.

Piecing Together Roman Life And Art: The Impact Of Societal Changes On Developments In Roman Mosaics, Emily A. Lewis

Honors Bachelor of Arts

Although changes in mosaics in ancient Rome can be attributed to various factors such as available resources, skills of the mosaicists, and room aesthetics with wall paintings, the changes in the relationship amongst social classes is a factor that is rarely examined, but strongly impacted these development in mosaic styles. First, an analysis of various mosaics from the 2^nd century BC-2^nd century AD will be given so that there is an understanding of the changes that occurred. From there, reasons for the adaptations of polychrome into black and white will be assessed; focusing the argument on analysis of ...

The Marriage Of Cicero: Matrimonial Metaphor In The Second Philippic, Elijah J. Mears

Papers & Publications: Interdisciplinary Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper examines Cicero’s self-presentation in the second Philippic oration and his casting of himself in opposition to Marc Antony, particular in regard to themes of conjugal and marital virtue. I argue that Cicero attempts to augment his own claim to be helmsman of the Roman state by portraying himself as metaphorically married to the Republic: Cicero, throughout the Philippics, bolsters his own virtues by portraying himself in opposition to Antony’s vices, particularly Antony’s many sexual and romantic misdeeds, including his “marriage” to the younger Curio. This comparison points not only to Cicero’s own sexual virtue ...

Cynic And Epicurean Parrhesia In Horace's Epodes 5 & 6: Appropriating A Parallel Philosophical Debate For Poetic Purposes, Kent Klymenko

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Within Horace's fifth and sixth Epodes there is a juxtaposition of canine imagery. This imagery parallels two different interpretations of the philosophical concept of parrhesia or frank speech. Horace examines the parrhesia of Cynicism and contrasts it with the parrhesia of Epicureanism. After establishing Horace's philosophical influences, I engage in a close reading of the two poems through the lens of these competing philosophical interpretations of the same concept. I make the argument that Horace is using his knowledge of philosophy to make a larger poetic point. Although Horace's own stance on parrhesia favors Epicureanism, to the ...

A Mixed Place: The Pastoral Symposium Of Horace, Kristen Ehrhardt

2018 Faculty Bibliography

When Horace invites Tyndaris to an outdoor drinking party in Odes 1.17, he mixes the locus amoenus of pastoral with the trappings of symposia. I argue that the mixture of the two poetic spaces creates a potentially volatile combination by muddling the expectations of each place’s safety and danger. I read 1.17 in light of other pastoral poems in Odes 1 to establish Horace’s creation of safe places through the negation of natural perils. Although pastoral has its own dangers, the addition of sympotic motifs in 1.17 attracts different beasts—sexual predators—to Tyndaris’ party.

Tragedy And Theodicy: The Role Of The Sufferer From Job To Ahab, Nora Carroll

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The character of Job starts in literature, a trope and archetype of the suffering man who potentially gains wisdom through suffering. Job’s characterization informs a comparison to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare’s King Lear, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and finally Melville’s Moby-Dick. These versions of Job rally, fight, and rebel against a universe that was once loving and fair towards a more chaotic and nihilistic one. Job’s suffering is on the mark of all tragedy because he not only experiences a downfall, he gains wisdom through universalizing his torment. The Job trope not only stresses the role ...

Footnotes To Footnotes: Whitehead's Plato, Nathan Oglesby

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the presence of Plato in the philosophical expressions of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). It was Whitehead who issued the well-known remark that “the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists in a series of footnotes to Plato" -- the purpose of this project is to examine the manner in which Whitehead positioned himself as one such footnote, with respect to his thought itself, and its origins, presentation and reception.

This examination involves: first, an explication of Whitehead’s cosmology and metaphysics and their ostensibly Platonic elements (consisting chiefly in the Timaeus); second, investigation ...

Sacred And Profane Loves: The Renaissance Influence In C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, Kevin Corr

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

C.S. Lewis’ last novel, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, has often been regarded as his greatest work, but just as often as his most enigmatic work. The purpose of this thesis is to unveil much of the novel’s mystery by considering the impact Renaissance literature had in shaping the novel, most notably Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Although it is well-known that Lewis was Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge, current scholarship on Lewis has overlooked the Renaissance influence in the author’s work, which particularly plays a vital role in Till We Have ...

Notes On Contributors

Transference

No abstract provided.