Classics Commons^™

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.

An Illustrated Metamorphoses, Alexandria Devlin

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

This project was a comic consisting of five different myths from Ovid's Metamorphoses. My goal was to make it easier and more enjoyable for audiences to read classical myths, and give these stories a way to shine in the 21st century. Myths from many different cultures have been adapted into comics, but direct depictions are much less common than shaping mythological figures to fit a new story. I have yet to find a direct comic adaptation of Metamorphoses. Ovid's Metamorphoses is full of rich and interesting stories and deserves to be represented alongside other mythological tales.

Jet Of Blood Vr: First Playable Demo, Elizabeth Goins, Andy Head, Mason Hayes

Frameless

A VR staging of Anonin Artaud’s 1925 surrealist play, Jet of Blood. The project experiments with virtual reality as a means to reimagine performance and frame the player, the audience, as actor. Ideas from Artaud’s philosophy such as the Theatre of Cruelty are incorporated along with spatial storytelling and game design. The project also seeks to expand accessibility to deaf and hard of hearing audiences through use of particle and text effects to visually express audio and sound.

The Rise Of Rome, The Fall Of Spain: Classical Reception In Leopoldo Alas, Galdós, And José Díaz Fernández, Meghan E. Hodges

LSU Master's Theses

The turn of the century was a period of rapid change and modernization. Spain, unlike neighboring European nations, was collapsing as an imperial force. The ensuing crisis of national identity fueled existing political tensions from the early nineteenth century which would lead to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). This thesis examines various national crises from 1890 and the decade preceding the loss of Spain’s final colonies to 1929 and the decade preceding the Civil War. Both of these periods saw substantial acceleration of modernization and incredible resistance to it. Despite the hyper-presence of modernity within contemporary literary movements, there is …

Poetics As Rhetoric In The Works Of Horace, Lauren W. Brown

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This project demonstrates how Horace uses rhetoric in his poetics in order to advocate for moderation. The first chapter focuses on the rhetorical strategies of the Satires, in which Horace uses a poetic persona with an ambiguous social status and that acts as a bad exemplum of the morals he advocates for. The chapter also explores Horace’s use of a motif where something that appears quantifiably larger is, in fact, either of equal or lesser worth, which also appeals to issues of class. The second chapter turns to Horace’s use of rhetoric in the Odes. In the Odes, Horace focuses …

Transforming Leviathan: Job, Hobbes, Zvyagintsev And Philosophical Progression, Graham C. Goff

Journal of Religion & Film

The allegory of Leviathan, the biblical serpent of the seas, has undergone numerous distinct and even antithetical conceptions since its origin in the book of Job. Most prominently, Leviathan was the namesake of Thomas Hobbes’s 1651 political treatise and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2014 film of the same name, a damning indictment of Russian corruption. These three iterations underscore the societal transition from the recognition of power as being derived from God to the secularization of power in Hobbes’s philosophy, to the negation of the legitimacy of divine and secular institutional power, in Zvyagintsev’s controversial film. This examination of Leviathan’s three unique …

The Impact Of Women On The Life And Legacy Of Mark Antony, Lauren E. Yaple

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Throughout the life of Mark Antony, the women he became involved with had a large impact on his political career, life, and legacy. These women, such as Fulvia and Cleopatra, used Antony as a means to achieve their own political, economic, and personal goals and were able to gain power in a very anti-feminist society through their relationships with and manipulations of him, affecting the career of Antony in many ways including his politics and his actions as a military commander, as showcased by the examination of primary sources from the late Roman Republic and early Roman empire periods. This …

Oedipus Der Tyrann: Zur Titelwahl Und Zum Begriff Des ›Tyrannen‹ In Hölderlins Übersetzung Des Sophokleischen Oedipus Tyrannus, Priscilla A. Hayden-Roy

German Language and Literature Papers

Zusammenfassung-- Im Jahr 1804 erschien Hölderlins zweibändige Übersetzung, Die Trauerspiele des Sophokles, bestehend aus Oedipus der Tyrann und Antigonae. Zeitgenossen haben u.a. die Titelwahl für seine Ödipus-Tragödie beanstandet, die, so ein Rezensent, gleich vorweg die mangelhaften Griechischkenntnisse des Übersetzers verrate. In diesem Aufsatz wird zunächst die Geschichte des Titels von Sophokles’ erster Ödipus-Tragödie skizziert, von der handschriftlichen Überlieferung bis hin zu volkssprachlichen Übersetzungen und Bearbeitungen, die vor 1805 im europäischen Raum erschienen sind. Der Fokus wird dann ausgeweitet auf die antike Bedeutung von tyrannos und Sophokles’ Verwendung von dieser und anderen Herrscherbezeichnungen in diesem Werk. Eine Analyse von …

Confucianism And Folklore In Vietnamese Fantasy Short Stories: The Case Of Ghost Stories , Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Truyền kỳ, which is a genre of fantasy short stories, was formed and developed in the historic period of medieval literature of Vietnam in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Despite being derived from a similar Chinese genre, the truyền kỳ of Vietnam was the work of the endogenous development of the national fantasy short story, which was closely associated with folk literature and historical prose. However, at the time of its inception, as well as at the glorious top of this genre, truyền kỳ had never been accepted as an official genre. It was rather a metaphor for unorthodox discourse …

Emotion In Plato's Trial Of Socrates, Thomas W. Moody

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation argues that Plato composed the figure of Socrates as a three-dimensional literary character who experiences and confronts emotions in ways that other studies have overlooked. By adopting a dramatic, non-dogmatic mode of reading the dialogues and emphasizing the literary elements of the texts and their dramatic connections, this dissertation offers a new and compelling portrait of Socrates in the dialogues that relate his finals weeks of life: Theaetetus, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. This study in turn provides new insights into the genre of Plato’s texts and demonstrates how he exploited the dramatic …

This Effeminate Stranger: Dionysus' Gender In Translation And Performance, August Guszkowski

Independent Student Projects and Publications

This Effeminate Stranger: Dionysus’ Gender in Translation and Performance explores the possible interpretation of the character of Dionysus in Euripides’ Bacchae as genderqueer, specifically nonbinary. The project consists of a translation of the Bacchae from Ancient Greek into English which pays special attention to instances where Dionysus’ character is treated as somewhere between or outside of the traditional male-female gender binary, including placing emphasis on the god’s “effeminate” appearance and ability to influence other people to act across gendered lines. The groundbreaking translation refers to Dionysus with they/them pronouns rather than the traditional he/him and embraces this surprisingly well-evidenced reading …

Ἔπος: A Musical Concept Album Adaptation Of Homer’S Iliad, Blaike Cheramie

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis project is a musical concept album adaptation of Homer’s classical epic the Iliad. Inspired by musicals like Hadestown, Les Miserables, and Hamilton as well as movies like O Brother Where Art Thou and musicians like Bob Dylan, this album seeks to enter the genre of Classical Reception Studies. The album consists of seven tracks all referencing moments within the poem, written from the perspective of the characters to inspire empathy within the audience. The content of this thesis includes detailed chord charts and audio demos of each song, as well as analyses of the lyrical, musical, and thematic …

The Multifront Battle Waged Against Female Autonomy: A Comparative Study Of Ancient Medical And Literary Texts, Leah K. Montello

Honors Theses

Male authors have long waged a multifront campaign against female independence. In this thesis, I focus on two specific fronts: literary and medical texts of the Classical Greek period. This thesis intends to explore the varying strategies in a selection of works, employed to reinforce prescribed gender norms. I approach this with a feminist lens to critique attempts made by elite educated Greek men to define what a woman ought to be like. I do not, however, explore every single tactic a medical and literary writer has applied to uphold patriarchal norms. My two body chapters revolve respectively around two …

The Philosophical Unconscious, John Shannon Hendrix

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Contingent Catastrophe Or Agonistic Advantage: The Rhetoric Of Violence In Classical Athenian Curses, Radcliffe Edmonds Iii

Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

The surprising absence of violent language from classical Athenian curses is best understood as a rhetorical strategy appropriate for getting the divine powers to enact the curser's desire to harm his or her enemies and to gain an advantage in the particular agonistic context. A contrast with the extravagantly violent language of other contemporary curses, which call for unmitigated catastrophe to befall their targets, shows that the fundamental difference between these curses is the audience that they primarily address, which shapes the nature of the request that is made in the imprecation. Whereas contingent curses primarily address the human community …

"All That Remains Of Husband", James L. Kleerup

Scripps Senior Theses

Within Book 4 of Virgil’s Aeneid, the question of marriage is repeatedly raised. Specifically, it is debated whether or not Dido and Aeneas are married. This question is hotly debated by both the characters and scholars, as the answer is not definitively given within the text. This paper seeks to provide an answer, as the contemporary Roman reader would likely have interpreted their relationship, and also address why Virgil remained purposefully vague. Within Book 4, three key scenes are examined: the discussion between Juno and Venus where Juno proposes the wedding, the cave scene, and Dido and Aeneas’ argument …

Speech And Enchantment In Early Greek Thought From The Archaic To The Hellenistic Period, R. J. Barnes

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

When describing complex aesthetic or cognitive experiences, speakers often reach for idiomatic language. For ancient Greeks, one major cache of idiomatic terms comes from the language of enchantment. This dissertation accounts for how and why ancient Greeks used words related to θέλγω, κηλέω, γοητεία, μαγεία, μαγγανεία, ἐπῳδή, and ψυχαγωγία as a way of describing the effects of speech and song. Examination is given to writers from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period. Most important are Gorgias of Leontini, Plato, and Philodemus, who each remark in detail about the experience of enchantment. The study reveals that Greek writers use the language …

Signs In Sophocles: Modern Approaches To Ptsd In The Ajax, Charlotte Simon

Honors Theses

This project explores the relationship between ancient Greek tragedy and modern psychology, specifically focusing on instances of PTSD, both through the descriptions of symptoms and the cultural reaction to such trauma responses in both ancient and modern sources. The case study from ancient Greece is Sophocles’ play, Ajax, a dramatic depiction of a post-PTSD soldier who has a mental break and is faced with either living with what he has done or committing suicide. The primary objective of this project is to illustrate what modern psychological theory can reveal about the portrayal of PTSD in Greek tragedy and therefore also …

Looking At The Donor Character Through A Formalist Lens, Elena Rodriguez

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Douglas Young, Hellenist, Ward Briggs

Studies in Scottish Literature

A reassessment of the Scottish writer Douglas Young's career as classicist, poet, translator, and teacher, tracing the centrality to his achievement of his commitment to Greek literature and classical scholarship.

Fire And Brimstone: Analyzing Evangelicalism's Burning Of The Bible In Favor Of Literature, Kylee Phalen

Undergraduate Honors Theses

As a cultural staple, the Christian faith has been a defining characteristic of the United States for generations. Religion has moved from the spiritual and become integral to many parts of this society’s social gatherings, artistic outlets, and even businesses. Often rooting itself in conservative values and interpretations of The Bible, Evangelicalism’s beliefs regarding damnation and hell contradicts its sola scriptura theological view. Yet, with The Bible’s near silence on hellish matters when looked at as a whole, the human need to have these gaps filled allowed for literary portrayals of hell and explanations of damnation to become part of …

Assyrian Aesthetics: Recovering The Modern Assyrian Art Of William Daniel (1903-88) And Andre Gvalevich (1911-85), Ryan Nazari

Canterbury Scholars

In response to the lack of scholarly attention to modern Assyrian culture (i.e., mid-20th century to present), this paper creates a conversation between two Assyrian pieces of art––William Daniel’s poem “The Problem” and Andre Gvalevich’s oil painting portrait of William Daniel. In my argument, I show how “The Problem” and the portrait advance themes of loneliness/intimacy based on the aesthetic relationship between the artists and their respective audiences. I first define Peter Balakian’s account of aesthetics in his article “Poetry as Civilization” for my theoretical context. Secondly, I summarize and critique the methodologies of current scholarship that exist on my …

The Unwelcome Guest: Envy And Shame Materialized In A Roman Villa, Andrew Scholtz

Middle Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Studies (MEAMS) Faculty Scholarship

A third-century C.E. inscribed mosaic from Skala, on the Greek island of Kefallonia, has greatly expanded our knowledge of envy’s evil eye in the Roman Mediterranean. Yet its inscription has not drawn the attention it deserves. Paying heed to the literary, affective, and material dimensions of this and other mosaic texts, I explore how the Skala poem, in tandem with the imagery it accompanies, mediates encounters between guest, host, and house. In so doing, it forms part of a decorative program materializing envy as actor in a drama celebrating a householder’s fortune while exposing the envious to general scorn.

The Dichotomy Of Nature And Culture In Riders To The Sea, Kayla J. Baur

Publications and Research

Jonathan Millington Synge spent his time on the Aran Islands wandering through the peasantry in the countryside, using his experiences and things he witnessed to inspire his writings. He wrote the play Riders to the Sea to portray the lives of the Aran peasants by showing the way in which they coped with the natural forces surrounding their island through believing in certain cultures. Synge constructs a dichotomy between the belief in the forces of nature and culture stemming from modern Christianity not only to portray the mixture of cultures present among the Aran peasants but also to challenge the …

Quod Inane Vocamus: Lucretius’ Void In Seventeenth-Century Italy, Carlo Bottone

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During the seventeenth century, the revival of atomic theories and the beginning of barometric experiments sparked a philosophical debate on the existence and the nature of void, which in turn generated new attention to the ancient disputes on void and prompted new interpretations of Lucretius’ examination of inane (De Rerum Natura, I.329-397). Commentators began to discuss the passage beyond the ancient philosophical tradition and in relation to modern ideas and recent discoveries, while Vacuists appealed to Lucretian arguments to prove or deny the existence of an absolute void interspersed among corpuscles.

My research contributes to the scholarship on …

Semantics Of Poem In «Divani Lugati-T-Turk», Qosimjon Sodiqov, Govhar Rahmatova

The Light of Islam

Lyric songs show how rich the aesthetic taste of the Turkic peoples is, that they have always had a special love for the art of speech and that they have a literary reserve to compete with the fastest peoples of their time in terms of artistic texture. These songs also reflected the artistic views of the Turks. Lyric songs are distinguished by content, musicality, spiritual closeness. They naturally and sincerely describe the glorification of true love, its appreciation, the value of spiritual and moral purity, fidelity and devotion.

Purely lyrical experiences with their novelty, richness of images and unique pathos …

نظرية التلقي وقراءة التراث العربي: تطبيقات على النقد الأدبي في العهد المريني, عبد الجليل شوقي

Dirassat

This article reflects the patterns of critical reception in Maranian critics. It shows that Moroccan literature does not allow for literary criticism due to the abundance of their western thoughts in their works. It also points out that such rejection or disappointment in readings intended to conflict with old critics in the study of monetary issues. This pattern of reception distinguished the reading of a Marinian critic who sought to develop Arab thought in general and the critical sense in particular. Arab thought is constantly evolving and the application of many ideas varies depending on the context. Therefore, the literary …

Dual Immersion Programs: Are They Enough?, Samantha Renae Castillo

Canterbury Scholars

This study asks: How do middle school students attending a Spanish and English dual immersion program develop their biliteracy skills differently based on the extent of their exposure to and practice of both languages in the home environment? Deborah Brandt argues that sponsors invest in literacy tools in order to give other people access to language resources, allowing communication to be fostered through the passing on of information, as done between different generations. This research project examines how literacy sponsorship outside of the classroom impacts an individual’s bilingual development overall. In a pilot version of this study with two participants, …

Thinking Queerly: Medievalism, Wizardry, And Neurodiversity In Young Adult Texts, Jes Battis

Premodern Transgressive Literatures

Why do we love wizards? Where do these magical figures come from? Thinking Queerly traces the wizard from medieval Arthurian literature to contemporary YA adaptations. By exploring the link between Merlin and Harry Potter, or Morgan la Fey and Sabrina, readers will see how the wizard offers spaces of hope and transformation for young readers. In particular, this book examines how wizards think differently, and how this difference can resonate with both LGBTQ and neurodivergent readers, who’ve been told they don’t fit in.

Language As The Medium: A Literature Review. Harnessing The Prolific Power Of Dramatic Language As A Therapeutic Tool In Drama Therapy, Edward Freeman

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Language in and of the theatre, with its palate of variegated writing styles and playwrights from throughout time, has the potential to be harnessed, focused, and systematized for use as a therapeutic tool within drama therapy – the field’s artistic medium. Drama therapy could benefit from having a specific medium germane to its artform which has the potential to provide practitioners with a common resource and means of communication, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning, as well as align the field with other creative arts therapies. Language encompasses all forms of human communication – speaking, writing, signing, gesturing, expressing facially – …