Other Classics Commons^™

Odyssey Of A Renegade Queen, Annabelle Harris

Honors Theses

After a violent shipwreck, Savannah washes up on the shores of Outis with no memory of her past. She is found by James, who she thinks is a suave but ill-tempered merchant. Outis turns out to be a more dangerous place than Savannah had thought. Through the aftermath of a traumatic encounter with another islander, she learns that James is a notorious pirate, and she is stuck on an island populated by his dangerous crew. James gives Savannah an ultimatum, and with no choice but to join his crew, she becomes the ship surgeon on the Cyllenia. During their sea-faring …

The Development And Adoption Of The Codex, Rutherford Allison

Honors Bachelor of Arts

One of the longest-lasting and least recognized changes that occurred under the Roman Empire is the transition from scrolls as a vessel for literature to codices, the format which, in some way, is still used today. Indeed, until the invention of the printing press, texts had not undergone as impactful a shift as was experienced during the period between 250 and 450 AD. This shift was tied closely to the spread of Christianity; the codex’s rise to dominance maps closely to the spread of Christianity, and this is no accident. As will become apparent, Christians possessed a strong and distinctive …

Evolving Identity: Hellenistic Greece Vs. Arthurian Legend, Irene A. Bougatsos

Publications and Research

This paper for a capstone class delves into two iconic figures from contrasting time periods. While Sir Gawain and Alexander the Great are two literary figures separated by several centuries, the theme of identity is present in the stories of The Greek Alexander Romance and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. How identity fluctuates is what this paper strives to answer.

Discovering Dune: Essays On Frank Herbert’S Epic Saga., Edited By Dominic J. Nardi And N. Trevor Brierly, G. Connor Salter

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

G. Connor Salter reviews Discovering Dune: Essays on Frank Herbert’s Epic Saga, edited by Dominic J. Nardi and N. Trevor Brierly, considering its new contributions to studies of Frank Herbert's work. Essays included fit into four categories (Politics and Power, History and Religion, Biology and Ecology, and Philosophy, Choice and Ethics) and range from Herbert's use of ecology in Dune to how game theory may help explain certain characters' apparent ability to see the future. Discovering Dune also includes an appendix which contains the only up-to-date bibliography of Herbert's work (primary and secondary sources).

A Wrath That Remembers: A Feminist Companion To Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Mary Iris Allison

Scripps Senior Theses

This project is a feminist translation and companion to Aeschylus' Agamemnon, which includes detailed footnotes and references to secondary authors that provide a feminist reading of the text.

Strange Creature, Dagny Walton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Strange Creature is an exploration and renovation of the myth of the American West. I extract elements from the known and recognizable myth of the West and create my own rendition, focusing in particular on themes of transformation and violence. Here in this black mirror world, animals speak out loud, cowboys face down a wildland with eyes, and two suns light up the lonely sky. There is no continuous narrative thread, but each piece is a vignette that takes place in a single shared world. This world is at once familiar and completely alien. I intend to surprise the viewer …

Non Ennarabile Textum: Allusive Ekphrasis In Francisco Javier Alegre's Alexandrias, Shashank Dimri

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Neo-Latin literature in colonial New Spain has a rich history that has only in recent years garnered broader interest from scholars. One of the most unique works produced in New Spain during this time is Jesuit scholar Francisco Javier Alegre’s Alexandrias, an epic that depicts Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Phoenician city of Tyre. As there is scant scholarship analyzing the literary elements of the Alexandrias, this paper focuses only on Alegre’s usage of ekphrasis—a detailed description of an object—in book one of the epic, rather than attempting to explore every allusive aspect in this dense text. …

The Storytelling Cure: Medicine And Narrative From Galen To Shahrazad And Rousseau, Ryan A. Milov-Cordoba

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Are stories healing? This dissertation introduces and explores an idea that I call “the storytelling cure.” With this term I capture a set of related notions about the healing power of stories that span literary studies, intellectual history, philosophy, and medical practice. Through a comparative study I make the case for “the storytelling cure” as a cross-cultural, multiconfessional, and multilingual phenomenon of great age, complexity, and power, worthy of the most sustained attention by the contemporary field of Comparative Literature. Concretely, this dissertation presents three extended case studies of “storytelling cures” from three different kinds of texts (case history, frame …

The Intersection Of Prose And Poetics In Apollonius’ Argonautica, Stephen B. Ogumah

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Detecting allusions in the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes is not quite new except for the fact that it has been carried out for long mostly within the poetic tradition. Looking at the proem of the epic, where there is mixing of genres, this mixture suggests that scholars may need to look beyond the Homeric epics and the poetic tradition for better appreciation of the Alexandrian epic. This dissertation explores the relationship between certain features and episodes of Apollonius’ Argonautica and the prose tradition, and seeks to show that the prose tradition, particularly Herodotus’ Histories, is germane to the …

The Greco-Roman Influence On Early Christian Art, Tim Ganshirt

Honors Bachelor of Arts

It cannot be denied that early Christian communities used familiar Greco-Roman symbols, images, icons, and ideas in their own ways. For this reason, it will be necessary to examine why these communities in Rome took parts of Greco-Roman society that were familiar to them and used them in a different way, in addition to exploring the varying degrees of effect that these images had on the Christian communities themselves and on the society around them. By “early Christian communities,” I mean Christians living in Rome at the beginning of the third century until the late fifth century.[1] For these …

By The Power Vesta-Ed In Me: The Power Of The Vestal Virgins And Those Who Took Advantage Of It, Elena M. Stanley

Classical Mediterranean and Middle East Honors Projects

Vestal Virgins were high ranking members of the Roman elite. Due to the priestesses’ elevated standing, Romans made use of their inherent privileges. Through analyses of case studies from ancient authors and archaeology, I identify three ways Romans wielded Vestal power: familial connections, financial and material resources, and political sway. I end by exploring cases of crimen incesti, the crime of unchastity, which highlight all three forms. The Vestals were influential women who shared access to power in different ways. The Vestals were active participants in the social and political world of Rome.

Humanity And Nature: From Vergil To Modernity, Aaron Ticknor

Honors Bachelor of Arts

Though ecology is a relatively new field of study, the human relationship to nature has shifted and changed throughout history. In antiquity, it has been understood by scholarly consensus that there was a more general understanding of nature as a living force with spirit, for example the Roman animist concept of numen, and humanity being one with nature. In modernity, however, under the influence of Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon, nature is seen as completely separate from humanity and devoid of any value beyond the economic value of resources. Later philosophers such as Nietzsche lamented this shift, advocating for …

The Name And Its Significance: An Examination Of Names In Aristotle’S And Plato’S Philosophy Of Language, Matthew Blain

Honors Bachelor of Arts

In the early 20th century, philosophy underwent a “linguistic turn,” in which philosophy, humanities, and even sciences made a redoubled focus on language itself. This turn was quite comprehensive, focusing on nearly every aspect of language such as meaning, reference, truth and falsity, logic, and the connection of language and reality. This renewed focus garnered a significant amount of attention and thought in the 20th century by some of its most prominent thinkers of both the analytic and even continental traditions. In the analytic tradition, Wittgenstein, in his Tractatus, saw language as the logical limit of our known world, out …

Cultural Collapse Of The Seleucid Empire, John Paul Mastandrea

Honors Bachelor of Arts

This paper seeks to explore the causes for the collapse of the Seleucid Empire following the death of Alexander the Great. The reasons for this collapse were numerous, but primarily focus on the administrative difficulties inherited from the Persian empire, the vast cultural differences within the empire, and the priorities of the Seleucid rulers. In order to show a counter point of a Greek state that succeeded in ruling a foreign people, the exploration of Ptolemaic Egypt is put alongside the Seleucids. The Egyptian Greeks succeeded in all of the ways that the Seleucids failed. By putting these two states …

Dancing And Poetry: A Study Of The Whirling Dervish Dance Through Rumi’S Poetry, Tasneem Huq

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This exploration investigates the influence of Rumi’s book of poetry, Mathnawi, upon the Sufi practice of the Whirling Dervish dances. It argues that Rumi’s Mathnawi underlies the choreography of the Whirling Dervish dances. Each step of the dance expresses, manifests or embodies themes found in Rumi’s poetry: separation from Unity, ascension, annihilation, and a return to Unity. The thesis introduces this argument, and then discusses historical, theological, and linguistic themes related to Rumi, Sufism, and the Whirling Dervish dances. Following this, the thesis provides a framework that begins with the Neoplatonic theory of emanation grounding Rumi’s poetic thought, followed by …

Boston Discusses The Massacre, Jean C. O'Connor

The Montana English Journal

Teachers may use this chapter from The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution as a short story for grades 7 – 12., to explore themes of interpersonal conflict, conflict resolution, and the value of law.

The chapter “Boston Discusses the Massacre” is taken from The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution (Knox Press, 2020), and used with permission. James Lovell, teacher at the Boston Latin School, discusses the pivotal events of March 5, 1770. As the conflicts that become the American Revolution begin a group of …

Japanese Fairy Tales, Lafcadio Hearn

Zea E-Books Collection

• Chin-Chin Kobakama • The Goblin-Spider • The Old Woman Who Lost Her Dumplings • The Boy Who Drew Cats • The Silly Jelly-Fish • The Hare of Inaba • Shippeitarō • The Matsuyama Mirror • My Lord Bag-o’-Rice • The Serpent with Eight Heads • The Old Man and the Devils • The Tongue-Cut Sparrow • The Wooden Bowl • The Tea-Kettle • Urashima • Green Willow • The Flute • Reflections • The Spring Lover and the Autumn Lover • Momotaro

The versions of the first four tales in this volume are by Lafcadio Hearn. The others are …

Roman New Comedy In The Renaissance: The Influence Of Plautus In Shakespearean Comedy, Nick Minion

Honors Bachelor of Arts

Undoubtedly the most well-known playwright in the English language, Shakespeare’s influence can be felt in most every genre in most every era. Allusions to his work can be found anywhere, from horror novels to sci-fi. Beyond allusions, most strongly felt is his stylistic influence in theatre. Names, plot devices, and images have all been taken from Shakespeare’s greatest works and implemented and transformed in new art forms. However, not all elements of Shakespearean drama originated with the bard himself. Shakespeare drew inspiration from the dramatists that preceded him, especially Roman playwrights. In his earlier works, these similarities are apparent. The …

More Than Just A Fantasy: Literary Fantasy As An Architectural Tool, Kae Schwalber

Architecture Senior Theses

Fantasy literature world building can suggest and support alternative paths for architectural practice using the super stimuli of fantasy “otherworlds” to promote and create more “placed” spaces and improve the wellbeing of communities. According to Edward Relph, the United States has had an issue with “placelessness” since the 1950’s, where building typologies are nationally distributed and rarely localized. Literary Fantasy has created worlds so desirable that they have permeated into a multi-billion dollar industry that reaches past literature, making the consumption of fictional worlds a central behavior in modern societies. The cultural importance and success of the genre is due …

Women In Livy And Tacitus, Stephen Alexander Prevoznik

Honors Bachelor of Arts

Although often neglected in Roman literature, women play important roles where they do appear. This is especially true in Livy's history called the Ab Urbe Condita or "From the Founding of the City" and Tacitus' work the Annals. For reasons I will clarify more in my presentation, Livy uses women as examples. Some are examples that the readers should follow. Lavinia, Lucretia, and the Sabine women all exemplify something good. Lavinia is noble in her aim, Lucretia is a model for chastity, and the Sabine women show the value of harmony. Livy also presents women who are bad examples. …