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| Editor: | Associate Editors: | |
| GARETH SCHMELING Department of Classics University of Florida Gainesville, Florida 32611-7435 Tel. (352) 392-2075 FAX (352) 846-0297 email: schmelin@classics.ufl.edu |
Vol. 30, Nos. 1 & 2 , APRIL 2000 |
Raymond Astbury Barry Baldwin Ewen Bowie Gian Biagio Conte Niklas Holzberg B.P. Reardon Gerald Sandy |
| Editor for On-line Edition: Jean Alvares, Department of Classics and General Humanities, Montclair State University. Telephone (973) 655-5292. alvaresj@mail.montclair.edu | ||
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| (Publication of the Newsletter is made possible by the
generous support of Martha B. McDonald who dedicates this volume in memoriam to her
beloved parents, Sgt. Carl E. and Toyo M. Byrd)
The third ICAN conference will be held at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 25-30 July 2000, hosted by Maaike Zimmerman-de Graaf. Consult the web: http://come.to/ican for the program and other good things. CORRECTIONS Page 5, vol. 29 (May 1999)
under Nachleben read:
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| For more bibliography (which can be added to) CLICK HERE for the PSN general Bibliography Page |
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APA MEETING IN DALLAS, 27-30 DECEMBER 1999 Schwartz, S., "Passion and Polis: Civil Trials in Greek Novels." Anderson, M., "Distinctions of Speech according to Gender in the Greek Novels." Wang, K., "Two Mystical Similes of Apuleius and Achilles Tatius." Chew, K., "Trotheisa eroti: Violence in the Greek Novels and Hagiographic Literature." Farmer, M., "The House of Trimalchio: a Reconstruction." Cueva, E., "Petronius 38.6-11: Haunted Houses, incubones, and the Medical Treatment of the alapa." Scioli, E., "The Narrative Function of Charite's Dreams in Apuleius' Metamorphoses." Weiss, C., "Cauda nusquam! On the Disappearance of Lucius'
Tail (Apul. Met. 11.13)."
CAMWS MEETING IN KNOXVILLE, APRIL , 2000 Frost, R. L., "A "Homeric Hymn to Eros" in Longus' Daphnis and Chloe." Alvares J., "Daphnis and Chloe and Clitophon and Leucippe: The Education of Love." Casey, E. . Lying in Lucian's True History. Avlamis, P., "True Histories: Lucian's Fantastic Voyage Through the Land of Genres." Gustafson, M., "A Reading of Satyricon 100-110: Tattoos and Recognition." Kilpatrick, R. S., "Apuleius and the "Allegory of Time and
Love" by Bronzino." TOURS CONFERENCE Colloque: "Les personnages du roman grec," 18-20 novembre 1999, Université de Tours. B.P. Reardon (invité d'honneur), "Callirhoe et ses soeurs"; G. Molinié, "Perspectives sémio-narratives dans le roman grec"; S. Dubel, "La description des personnages dans le roman grec de l'epoque impériale"; J. Lacoue-Labarthe, "Personnage et ekphrasis dans les romans grec et byzantin"; D. van Mal-Maeder, "Déclamations et romans: La double vie des personnages romanesques"; G. Puccini, "Le statut des personnages narrateurs dans les romans grecs et latins à l'epoque impériale"; J.-P Guez, "Pirates, brigands, malfaiteurs: types et écarts dans les romans de Chariton, Xénophon d'Éphèse et Achille Tatius"; S. Rabau, "La Tychè est-elle un personnage du roman grec?"; M.-F. Marein, "Les substituts de la Pythie dans le roman grec"; R. Poignault, "Les usurpateurs du Quadrige des Tyrans de l'Histoire Auguste: des personnages de roman?"; A. Billault, "Les personnages du Roman de Ninos"; C. Daude, "Le personnage d'Artaxerxes dans le roman de Chariton"; D. Kasprzyk, "Théron, pirate, conteur et narrateur dans le roman de Chariton"; A. Cheyns, "Le dieu Pan et l'expression de la violence dans Daphnis et Chloé"; V. Gély-Ghédira, "La Chloé de Longus, personnage ou figure? Le modèle d' Écho"; R. Brethes, "Clitophon ou une anthologie de l'anti-héros"; M. Woronoff, "Rapports de pouvoir entre personnages dans les Ethiopiques"; Ch. Cusset, "Le Jason d'Apollonios de Rhodes: premier personnage romanesque?"; F. Létoublon et J. Alaux, "La nourrice, de l'epopée au roman grec"; É. Wolff, "Les personnages du roman grec et l'Historia Apollonii regis Tyri"; A.-M. Taisne, "Faut-il jeter la pierre à Eumolpe (dans le Satiricon de Pétrone)?"; A. Farnoux, "Le roman grec comme roman archéologique"; B. Pouderon, "Dédoublement et création de personnages dans le roman pseudo-clémentin"; M.-A. Calvet, "Femmes du roman pseudo-clémentin"; D. Berranger-Auserve, "Cyprien, personnage romanesque dans la Confession de saint Cyprien"; P. Laurence, "Gérontios et la Vie de sainte Mélaine: hagiographie et roman"; C. Jouanno, "Les femmes dans le roman byzantin du XIIe siècle: fantasme ou réalité?"; M. Lassithiotakis, "Achille et Digénis: réflexions sur la fonction des thèmes acritiques dans l'Achilléide byzantine"; H. Théologitis, "Digénis Akritas et la
littérature byzantine".
ANNOUNCEMENTS Marvin Colker is at work on an edition of all the fragments of Elias of Thriplow (who used Petronius) and on a new edition of his Analecta Dublinensia with its stories that were influenced by Petronius. Fitzgerald, F. Scott, "Trimalchio": an Early Version of "The Great Gatsby," ed., J. West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). As early as 1922 Fitzgerald had begun to plan a novel which he would call "Trimalchio". In 1925, when the novel appeared, it was entitled The Great Gatsby. West offers us a thin introduction about the history of the writing of the novel including Perkins' valuable contributions, but prints the entire galley text of the novel called "Trimalchio", followed by a "Record of Variants" leading to the 1925 printed text. In Appendix 2, p. 190, West mentions Petronius but is unconcerned with Fitzgerald's knowledge of the Satyrica or of Petronius. When, where, why, how Fitzgerald came to read a Latin classic is of no interest to the uninquisitive West. This is too bad, since West having the luxury of showing how Fitzgerald struggled with different versions of his text (something every classicist would love to be able to struggle with), could have shown how ideas were borrowed from, then rejected or accepted, the Satyrica. "The Great Trimalchio? A Penn State English professor working under an NEH fellowship has uncovered the 'ur-text' of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It turns out that the novelist had originally named his protagonist 'Trimalchio.' James L.W. West III, who edits the Cambridge University Press edition of Fitzgerald's works ..." Quotation from NEH Outlook (5 November 1999), a monthly email newsletter of NEH. Thanks to Niall Slater for alerting me to this information (www.neh.gov). Muschamp, Herbert, "Trump, his Gilded Taste, and Me," The New York Times on the Web, December 19, 1999: http://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/121999trump-architecture.html (one has to register with the NYT website to actually see the article, but there is no cost) . Thanks to Will Gerald, a student of Niall Slater, and to Niall Slater for bringing this to my attention. The Donald (Trump, not Duck) as Trimalchio. Some English wag once observed that the USA was the only civilization he knew of, which went directly from the archaic to the decadent without going through the classical. I quote from Slater's comments about the New York Times article: "It's rather hilarious that the author casts himself as Ascyltos instead of Encolpius --- one suspects he's working from a bad summary rather than a real knowledge of Petronius." And from Will Gerald: "It is an architecture critic's reaction to Donald Trump's buildings in New York City, with a funny reference to Petronius'Satyricon. The author casts himself as Ascyltos and Trump as Trimalchio. It is actually a rather apt comparison." Casale, Giuditta, "Stendhal e Petronio: Julien a Pranzo da Valenod," Micromégas 65-66 (1997) 25-32. The Golden Ass, an opera by Randolph Peters and libretto by Robertson Davies, performed by the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto, April 1999. Ewen Bowie [CA News (December 1999)] provides an entertaining eye-witness account of the opera: "your correspondent had mistakenly inferred from claims of Puccini-esque tunes that the title would be The Girl with the Golden Ass." Pinto, Vivian de Sola, The City that Shone (New York: John Day, 1969) 236. In his autobiography Pinto records that on 11 October 1918 while serving in the British Army on the front lines, he wrote to his father and asked "him to send me 'an indelible pencil, candles and the works of Petronius in the Loeb edition'." As most educated young men of his time, Pinto had read Classics at the university. See also Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975) 67. My thanks to the Barriest of the Baldwins.
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by B.P. Reardon I wonder if all readers -- perhaps especially those outside North America, farther from the corridors of Petronian power -- are fully versed in the genesis of this journal, indeed of the Society whose organ it seems to be? Why is it the Petronian Society, to start with? It is the Petronian Society because its founders, the genial Gareth Schmeling and the late, lamented, just as affable J.P. Sullivan were interested in Petronius, and founded it for others of like mind. Its rules were and are simple: you are a member if you think you are; can't get much more liberal than that. Its rites consist of accepting the hospitality of its founder's at the annual APA meeting, but don't get there too late because the expression of that hospitality usually cannot keep up with demand. So much for the body corporate. The journal outgrew its clothes quite a long time ago; concerned with fiction, it is in its nomenclature itself a fiction. All very freewheeling. End of preamble. Preamble to what? To some thoughts, and questions in my mind. As for some years now, items included in this Greek Novel report have in many cases already been listed in the General Bibliography. It is also the case that classical bibliography in general has in this past year or two more and more been coming online. So such a report loses at least some of its point, which originally ( the first one appeared in 1982) was in large part to keep ahead of the game -- APh mainly, since Gnomon has always been ahead of everybody anyway -- as well as to provide specialised information in a more digestible form than the comprehensive sources. The question arises as to the value and future of this column, if it has any future, if it has any value. Perhaps that could be embraced in the more general question of the future of PSN itself, which Gareth Schmeling has been producing -- an essentially single-handed, ever-growing, and ever more costly labour -- for some thirty years. And also in the yet more general question of the future course of novel studies (it looks as if they do have a future). Whatever happens, this will be my last Greek Novel report. I have been glad to keep more or less up to date myself in this way, but circumstances are not propitious to my continuing. In other words, what happens next? Perhaps ICAN 2000 will help elicit some future arrangements. The conference is very much on track, as surfers will know: over 100 papers lined up. Maaike Zimmerman has arranged all kinds of things , and has had reluctantly to close the door. I look forward to it. I also hope that the annual Colloquia can resume in due course; they have become themselves mini-ICANs, and a welcome item in the academic calendar. For the present, here are the offerings. COLLECTIONS Hock, R.F., Chance, J.B., Perkins, Judith, eds. Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, Atlanta, Scholars Press (Society of Biblical Literature)(1998). Articles by Konstan, Schmeling, Edwards (D.), Chew, Shea, Pervo, Hock, Shiner, Hedrick, Chance, Alexander, Aubin, qq. v. Hofmann, H., ed., Latin Fiction. The Latin Novel in Context, London/NY (1999). Includes several articles on topics potentially of relevance to Greek fiction and/or Nachleben, that have appeared in this report before now: HART (Schmeling, Archibald), Alexander-Romance (Stoneman), Dares/Dictys (Merkle), hagiographical texts (Huber-Rebenich); qq. v. Nazzaro, A.V., "Narratologia antica e medioevale," GIF 49 (1997) 79-91. Review of novel articles in a Festschrift Pepe (Schmeling, Scarcella, Liviabella Furiani). Swain, Simon, ed., Oxford Readings in the Greek Novel,
Oxford (1999). As determined by OUP's
policy, mostly fairly recent journal articles; in English, some translated. On general
topics (Bowie, Fusillo, Saïd, Egger, Hägg) and the major
individual texts (Char, Long., Hld., Ach. Tat., Lucian VH); for details see PSN 1999
4. S. contributes a substantial account of the genre and an acute analysis of the course
of studies since Rohde. Should be particularly useful for teaching. CONFERENCE ACTA Hock, R.F., Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative (Symposium Series No. 6), v. Collections. Hofmann, H., Zimmerman, M., eds., Groningen Colloquia on the Novel IX, Groningen 1998. V. Couraud-Lalanne, Pletcher, Stramaglia, Bremmer, Lalleman, Hillhorst. Hunter, R.L., ed., Studies in Heliodorus,
Cambridge (1998), Cambridge Philological Society, Suppl. Vol. 21.
From the 1996 Laurence Seminar, Cambridge. Papers, qq. v. here (also PSN 1999 3),
on narrative technique (Bowie, Hardie, Hunter, Morgan), cultural context (Hilton,
Whitmarsh), reception (Agapitos, Bertoni/Fusillo), modern black consciousness (Selden).
EDITIONS AND TRANSLATIONS The only edition to report here is an (extensive) update; see Fragments, Lápez Martínez. More editions can be expected in due course (whatever that means - don't hold your breath); see Forthcoming for parsimonious information. Hadas, Moses, trans., Heliodorus: an Ethiopian Romance, Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania Press) (1999). Reissue, unaltered, of the 1957 edition. Lamb, W., trans., Heliodorus: Ethiopian Story, ed. J.R. Morgan, London 1997. Re-edition of 1961 ed. Panayotakis, S., trans., van Opstall, Emilie, Chaireas en Kallirhoe: een
Liefde, Amsterdam (1998). Translation. NOVEL, GENERAL Alexander, L., v. Christian Novel. Billault, A., "Les romanciers grecs et la tragédie,"Cahiers de la Villa "Kérylos," no.8, Beaulieu-sur-Mer (Alpes-Maritimes). (Paris 1998) 178-194. Colloque: Le Théâtre Grec Antique: La Tragédie. Brioso, M., "Modelos narrativos de la novela griega antigua," in Homenaje a Esperanza Albarrán Gómez (Seville 1998) 39-53. Brioso, M., "Aspectos formales del relato en la novela griega antigua," in M. Brioso, F.J. González Ponce eds., Actitudes Literarias en la Grecia Romana (Seville 1998) 123-207. Brioso, M., "Aspectos del estilo directo en la novela griega antigua," Habis 30 (1999) 153-173. That is, direct speech; complements Ferrini 1988. Brioso, M., "El engaño en la novela griega antigua. Algunas consideraciones (1)," Myrtia 14 (1999) 57-91. Brioso, M., "La técnica del resumen retrospectivo en la novela griega antiqua," in V. Bécares Botas et al., eds., Kalon Theama: Estudios de filología clásica e indoeuropeo dedicados a F. Romero Cruz, Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca (1999) 51-63. Couraud-Lalanne, Sophie, "Théâtralité et dramatisation rituelle dans le roman grec," GCN IX (1998) 1-16. Edsall, Margaret, "The Role and Characterization of the Priest in the Ancient Novel," diss. Columbia (1996). Finkelberg, Margalit, The Birth of Literary Fiction in Ancient Greece, Oxford (1998).The title, while in a restricted sense accurate, is misleading here. The book discusses the "poetics of fiction" in early and classical Greece, leading up to the Poetics; it does not go beyond Aristotle, or even hint at the existence of fiction in later Greece. This does seem like, not putting the cart before the horse, but leaving the cart in the farmyard. A sentence or two, even a subordinate clause on the last page, might be thought germane to such a discussion. All the same, one of the big questions is, not only why the novel arose when it did, but why it didn't when it didn't; present readers may well be interested in this discussion. Fusillo, M., "Romanzo e romanzieri greci," GIF 49 (1997) 273-76. An account of Scarcella's Romanzo e romanzieri..., P. Liviabella Furiani & L. Rossetti, eds., 2 vv., Napoli (1993), which collected a score or more of his wide-ranging publications. Galli, Lucia, "Petronio e il romanzo greco di Richard Heinze," Kleos 2 (1997) 77-98. Translation of H.'s famous 1899 article (H., 494-519), reportedly to mark its centenary; a near miss. Hock, R.F., Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, v. Collections. Konstan, D., "The Invention of Fiction," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative , v. Collections, 3-17. Lambin, G., "Sur les origines du roman grec," AC 68 (1999) 57-80. We have been here before. "Fruit d'un besoin profond de renouvellement...lié à la fonction fabulatrice dont parlait Bergson..élargissement d'un monde devenu trop grand.... littérature centrée sur l'homme". I seem to recognise the sentiments. Lateiner, Donald, "Blushes and Pallor in Ancient Fiction," Helios 25 (1998) 163-89. "Gender and power issues implicated." Pervo, R. "Introduction: the Ancient Novel Yesterday and Today," Journal of Higher Criticism 2 (1995) 3-32. Ruiz-Montero, C., "La concepcián de la mujer en los textos griegos de comienzos del imperio," in L. Frutos Balibrea, R. Maurandi Guirado, eds., Mujer e Investigación: "Encuentrosde Primavera del Ceumu", Universidad Murcia (1998), 507-514. Discusses Chariton, Xen. Eph., Joseph & Aseneth ; poses questions, but the conclusion is that no clear conclusions can be drawn by our century about women's attitudes in antiquity. It is not clear how far the novels reflect them; feminine authorship seems unlikely. Scarcella, A., v. Novel, General, Fusillo. Schmeling, G., "The Spectrum of Narrative: Authority of the Author," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative , v. Collections, 19-29. Thomas, C., "Stories without Texts and without Authors: the Problems of Fluidity in Ancient Novelistic Texts and Early Christian Literature," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, v. Collections, 273-293. Várhelyi, Zsuzsanna, "Representations of the 'Other': the Religion of the Egyptians in the Greek Novel," in Z. Nemes & G. Németh, eds., Heorte: Studia in honorem Johannis Sarkady septuagenarii, Debrecen (1997) 89-113 (PSN 1999). Wolff, Étienne, Le
roman grec et latin: thèmes et études, Paris (1997). ACHILLES TATIUS Billault, A., "Le comique d'Achille Tatius et les réalités de l'époque impériale," in M. Trédé & P. Hoffman, eds., Le rire des anciens, Paris, Presses de L'École Normale Supérieure (1998) 143-158. Bremmer, Jan, v. Heliodorus. Bychkov, O., Chrysos, Evangelos, "Les florilèges sacro-profanes et la tradition indirecte des romanciers Achille Tatius et Héliodore,"RHT 25 (1995) 81-90 (résumé in English). Text; readings in Byzantine collections better than ms. tradition. Hedrick, C., "Conceiving the Narrative: Colors in Achilles Tatius and the Gospel of Mark," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, v. Collections,177-199. Liviabella Furiani, Patrizia, "Pepli parlanti' e 'voci mute': la comunicazione non verbale nel romanzo di Achille Tazio," in L. Rossetti, O. Bellini, eds., Retorica e Verità: le insidie della comunicazione, Quaderni dell' Istituto di Filosofia della Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione, Univ. di Perugia, ESI 13 (1998) 97-149. Mignogna, E., "Il mimo Leucippe: un' ipotesi su PBerol inv.
13927 (Pack2 2437)," RCCM
38 (1996) 161-166. List of dramatic pieces, dated 5th C./6th C. Some connection with
Ach. Tat., apparently, from which the content can be reconstructed. Part of a body of
material common to narrative and pop theatre. Could Callirhoe fit into the same
category (Persius 1. 134 as reference to a theatrical performance)? And cf. the mosaics of
performances(?) of Met. & Parth., Ninus. AESOP Pervo, R., "A Nihilist Fabula: Introducing the Life of Aesop," in Hock et al, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, v. Collections. Shiner, W., "Creating Plot in Episodic Narrative: The Life of Aesop and the Gospel of
Mark," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian
Narrative, v. Collections, 155-176. ALEXANDER-ROMANCE Jouanno, C., "Un épisode embarrassant de l'histoire d'Alexandre: la prise de Thèbes," Ktema 18 (1993). Found in the earliest version, but played down. Stoneman, R. "The Latin Alexander," in Hofmann, Latin Fiction 167-186, v. Collections Stoneman, R., "The Medieval Alexander," in Hofmann, Latin Fiction 238-252, v. Collections. Traina, G., "Lo Pseudo-Callistene armeno. Nota introduttiva," in Ars narrandi. Studi di narrativa antica in memoria di Luigi Pepe, Napoli, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane (1996) 133-150. Traina, G., "La recensio a e i suoi paralleli orientali: osservazioni sull' edizione di Kroll," in R.B. Finazzi, A. Valvo, eds., La diffusione dell''eredità classica nell' età tardoantica e medievale. Il "romanzo di Alessandro" e altri scritti," Alessandria, Ed. dell' Orso (1998) 311-322. Traina, G., "Romanzo di Alessandro. I kafa di Chachatur Ketcharetsi," in B.L. Zekiya, ed., Canto d'Armenia, in Forma di parole s.4.1, Jan.- Mar. 1998 147-165. Traina, G., "Problemi testuali della Pseudo-Callistene armeno," in R.B. Finazzi, A. Valvo, eds., La diffusione dell' eredità classica nell' età tardoantica e medievale. Forme e modi di trasmissioni, Alessandria, Ed. dell' Orso (1997) 233-240. Traina, G., Ciancaglini,
C.A., "La recensio vetusta e i suoi testimoni
orientali," appendix to C. Franco, "Il romanzo di Alessandro," Quaderni di Storia 49
(1999) 95-102. CHARITON Balot, R., "Foucault, Chariton, and the Masculine Self," Helios 25 (1999) 139-162. Brioso, M., "Oralidad literatura de consumo en la novela griega antiqua?: Caritón y Jenofante de Éfeso (1)," Habis 31 (2000) 177-217. Couraud-Lalanne, Sophie, "Recit d'un Delbridge, M.L., "Prayer in Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe," in M. Kiley ed., Prayer from Alexander to Constantine, London/NY (1997) 171-175. Acute: prayer revealing societal criteria -- different for women (shame) and men (honour). Edwards, D., "Pleasurable Reading or Symbols of Power? Religious Themes and Social Context in Chariton," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative , v. Collections, 31-46. Guida, A., "Un apografo sconosciuto di Caritone, un'ambigua nota del Pasquali e una fallita impresa editoriale del '700," in V. Fera & A. Guida, eds., Vetustatis Indagator: scritti offerti a Filippo de Benedetto, Messina (1999) 277-308. This sounds like a major find, but turns out to be disappointing. A vague reference by Pasquali led G., in an intricate search through Florentine libraries, private as well as public, to ms. 2482 in the Biblioteca Riccardiana; it turned out to be an apograph of Salvini's unreliable apograph of Chariton. See Blake's edition, viii; but B.s date for that apograph of 'iam ante annum 1725' is improved by G. to a date between May 1700, when Salvini finished transcribing Xen. Eph., to a terminus ante quem of November 1711. Ricc. 2482 anticipates a handful of later conjectures, but is of no value for establishing the text. The episode does illustrate academic activity in Florence in the first half of the 18th C., and throws much light on the circumstances leading up to the publication of D'Orville's editio princeps in 1750. Toohey, Peter, "Dangerous Ways to Fall in Love: Chariton 1.1.5-10 and 6.9.4," Maia 51 (1999) 259-275. Chariton's use of the clichés of love: violent, external, cf. Archilochus, Sappho (Chaereas and Callirhoe) ; or "volitional" (Artaxerxes). van Steen, G., "Destined to Be? Tyche in Chariton's Chaereas and
Callirhoe and in the Byzantine Romance of Kallimachos and Chrysorroi,"AC 67 (1998) 203-211. A description of Tyche's
activities. DARES/DICTYS Merkle, S., "News from the Past: Dictys and Dares on the Trojan War," in Hofmann, Latin Fiction 155-156, v.Collections. HELIODORUS Bowie, E.L., "Phoenician Games in Heliodorus' Aithiopika," in Hunter, Studies in Heliodorus, v. Conference Acta,1-18. Bremmer, Jan, "Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus in Christian East Syria," in H. L. J. Vanstiphout, ed., All Those Nations. Cultural Encounters within and with the Near East. Studies Presented to Han Drijvers, Groningen, Styx (1999) 21-29. Discusses Ps.-Clem. in relation to Hld. and Ach. Tat., who were apparently known in Christian circles. Of immediate interest here, B. claims (27) to date Hld. to 230-240. Noch einmal... This is based on D.U. Hansen, GCN VIII 119-129 (v. PSN 1998 15, Christian Novel), accepted uncritically by B. at 26f.: similarities of motif, situation, language between Ps.-Clem. and Hld. Similarities of incident there are: disguise, recognition, escape. But even supposing that Hld. would necessarily be the source, they are anything but conclusive; Greek novels are made of such clichés. Hansen himself points out (124 n. 25) a common source in the Odyssey for disguise and recognition (and in doing so misreports an incident in Hld.: at 7.7 Calasiris's sons do not laugh at him). And the alleged similarities of expression are faint and singularly unconvincing. This game can be played ad infinitum; it proves nothing. H.'s references, by the way, are not always accurate. Bretzigheimer, G., "Die Persinna-Geschichte -- eine Erfindung des Kalasiris? Überlegungen zu Heliodors Äthiopika, 4.12.1-13.1," WS 111 (1998) 93-118. Usually Hld. does eventually enlighten the reader, but the double explanation for Cal.'s journey to Delphi is one matter he never does resolve. The two stories cannot really be said to be compatible. I suspect that B. is right. Cal. is just a born liar, or at least mystery-maker, and there is indeed a Riss in the story, as Hefti pointed out all those years ago. Shakespeare notoriously uses an impossible double time-frame in Othello. Gareth Schmeling will give a prize for the correct solution of the problem. Bretzigheimer, G., "Brudermord und Kindesmord. Pseudotragik in Heliodors Äthiopika (mit einer Appendix zum Beginn des Roman," WS 112 (1999) 59-86. Chrysos, Evangelos, v. Achilles Tatius. Cueva, E., "The Analogue of the Hero of Heliodorus' Aethiopica," Syllecta Classica 9 (1998) 103-113. Dworacki, Sylwester, "Theatre and Drama in Heliodorus' Aethiopica," Eos 54 (1996) 355-361. Brief account of a familiar topic. Hardie, Philip, "A Reading of Heliodorus, Aithiopika 3.4.1 - 3.5.2," in Hunter, Studies in Heliodorus, v. Conference Acta, 19-39. Hilton, John, A Commentary on Books 3 and 4 of the Aithiopika of Heliodorus, diss. Natal (1998). Hilton, John, "An Ethiopian Paradox: Heliodorus, Aithiopika 4.8," in Hunter, Studies in Heliodorus , v. Conference Acta, 79-92. Hilton, John, "The Meaning of Antitheos (Hld. 4.7.15) again," Acta Classica 40 (1997) 87-90. The word does mean "hostile god", not "godlike". Hunter, R.L., "The Aithiopika of Heliodorus: beyond Interpretation?," in Hunter, Studies in Heliodorus, v. Conference Acta, 40-59. Johne, R., "Eine äthiopische Prinzessin im griechischen Roman," in J. Irmscher, ed., Die Literatur der Spätantike - polyethnisch und polyglottisch betrachtet. Eine Aufsatzsammlung, angeregt und herausgegeben, Amsterdam (1997) 153-159. Létoublon, Françoise, "A propos de Chariclée et de l' 'effet Andromède'," REG 111 (1998) 732-734. Morgan, J.R., "Narrative Doublets in Heliodorus' Aithiopika, " in Hunter, Studies in Heliodorus, v. Conference Acta, 60-78. Pletcher, James, "Euripides in Heliodoros' Aithiopika 7-8," GCN IX 17-27. Schubert, P., "Le parcours de deux prêtres dans les Éthiopiques d'Héliodore," Maia 49 (1997) 257-264. A kind of re-run of Merkelbach, but with Calasiris and Charicles as the initiands/initiators; "their parallel destinies are the narrative instrument of a more global vision... which progressively opens up hidden truth". A complex text, certainly; it is perhaps not immediately clarified by this approach. Selden, Daniel, "Aithiopika and Ethiopianism," in Hunter, Studies in Heliodorus , v. Conference Acta, 182-217. Telà, Mario, "Eliodoro e la critica omerica antica," SIFC 17.1 (1999) 71-87. Hld.'s use of Homer includes references to criticism and interpretation of Homer by later writers: examples, analysis, e.g. Hld. 3.12ff, 8.17.5. That is to say, he expected his readers to have read not only Homer but critics of Homer; he is the only novelist to do this. An acute observation, obvious when pointed out. Whitmarsh, Tim, "The Birth of a Prodigy: Heliodorus and the Genealogy of Hellenism," in Hunter, Studies in Heliodorus , v. Conference Acta, 93-124. Whitmarsh, T., "The Writes of Passage: Cultural Initiation in Heliodorus' Aethiopica," in R. Miles, ed., Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity, London/NY (1999) 16-40. The Ethiopica reveals "the open and mobile cultural pattern of late antiquity" (Miles, Introdn. 4); Hld. "articulates a new conception of cultural identity" (Whitmarsh 18). W. accepts the late date, on grounds of "style, language and much of the subject-matter" (33 n.2); shifting sands. Ziethen, G., "Heliodors Aithiopika und die Gesandtschaften zu den Aithiopien,"
Klio 81.2 (1999) 455-490. Concerned with elements relating to
economics and diplomacy in the story; a reflection of a historical tradition of foreign
trade in the region. Not surprisingly in this journal, perhaps of more immediate interest
to historians who do not know the Ethiopica than to novelists, who do; but once
more we can see, in detail, Hld. at work arranging his story and "embroidering" it. HISTORIA APOLLONII REGIS TYRI Archibald, E., v. Nachleben. Fernández-Savater Martín, M.V., "Técnica narrativa en la Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri: las retrospecciones," Epos 13 (Madrid 1997) 31-53. Kortekaas, G.A.A., "Enigmas in and around the Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri,"Mn 51 (1998) 176-191. Kortekaas, G.A.A., "Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri: eine Kurznotiz," ZPE 122 (1998) 60. More support for a Greek original: HART's language comprehensible only as mistranslation of a Greek original, from Ach. Tat.. Schmeling, G., "The History of Apollonius King of Tyre," in Hofmann, Latin Fiction 141-152, v. Collections. Wolff, E., "Réflexion sur l'Historia Apollonii regis Tyri,"Recherches et Travaux 54 (1998) 181-188. LONGUS Edwards, M. J., "The Art of Love and the Love of Art in Longus," Acta Classica 66 (1997) 239-248. Fernández García, Aurelio
J., "El infinitivo en el Dafnis y Cloe de Longo: estudio
funcional," Amsterdam (1997). LUCIAN Georgiadou, A., Larmour,
D.H.J., "Lucian's 'Verae Historiae' as Philosophical
Parody,"H 126 (1999) 310-325. Rather too systematic?
Philosophers are certainly one of L.'s main sources of comic
references in VH; but that is true elsewhere in L. too. XENOPHON EPHESIUS Chance, J. Bradley, "Divine Prognostications and the Movement of Story: an Intertextual Exploration of Xenophon's Ephesian Tale and the Acts of the Apostles," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, v. Collections, 219-234. Chew, K., "Focalization in Xenophon of Ephesos' Ephesiaka," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, v. Collections, 47-60. Chew, K., "Inconsistency and Creativity in Xenophon's Ephesiaka," CW 91.4 (1998) 203-213. Enermalm, A., "An Ephesian Tale: Prayers to Isis and Other Gods," in M. Kiley, ed., Prayer from Alexander to Constantine, London/NY (1997?) 176-180. Shea, C., "Setting the Stage for Romances: Xenophon of Ephesus and the Ecphrasis," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, v. Collections, 61-76 .
FRAGMENTS Lápez Martínez, María Paz, Fragmentos papiráceos de novela griega, Universidad de Alicante (1996). A preliminary microfilm version appeared in 1994 (reported in PSN 1996, under Collections). It has been extensively modified to take account of subsequent publications, especially Stephens- Winkler (1995), and is now a book of some 500 pp. The body of texts treated (text, apparatus, translation, commentary) -- identified as 40 in number, some represented by more than one papyrus -- is not the same as that in SW (25 texts given, a further score mentioned). SW includes Antonius Diogenes and Iamblichus; this collection does not; but it does include, as SW does not, Nectanebus and numerous fragments extremely tenuous and/or of dubious nature (which it is none the less good to have conveniently available). There is an extensive apparatus of indices, bibliography etc. Luppe, W., "Abermals zum Sesongosis-Roman-Papyrus P. Oxy. 3319," ZPE 125 (1999) 85-86. Text. Mignogna, E., v. Ach. Tat. Prauscello, "Il fr. A. 2r 11-13 delle Storie fenicie di Lolliano: un problema di interpretazione," ZPE 122 (1998) 67-70. The transaction with Persis. Ruiz-Montero, C., "La novela de Nino y los comienzos del género," in M. Brioso, F.J. González Ponce, eds., Las letras griegas bajo el imperio, Seville (1996) 135-150. Ryholt, Kim, "A Demotic Version of Nectanebos' Dream (P. Carlsberg 562)," ZPE 122 (1998) 197-200. The first known Egyptian version -- thus confirming the accepted view that the well-known Greek "Dream" was copied from an Egyptian original. Beyond this, in itself it tells us very little, but more of the ms. is likely to come to light. Stramaglia, A., "Il soprannaturale nella narrativa greco-latina: testimonianze papirologiche,"GCN IX 29-60.
CHRISTIAN NOVEL Alexander, L., A., Better to Marry than to Burn': St. Paul and the Greek Novel," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, v. Collections, 235-256. Aubin, M., "Reversing Romance? The Acts of Thecla and the Ancient Novel," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, v. Collections, 257-272. Bremmer, Jan, "The Novel and the Apocryphal Acts: Place, Time and Readership," GCN IX (1998) 157-180. Bremmer, Jan, v. Heliodorus (on Ps.-Clem., title notwithstanding). Chance, J. Bradley, v. Xen. Eph. Hedrick, C., v. Ach. Tat. Hillhorst, Ton, "Erotic Elements in the Shepherd of Hermas," GCN IX (1998) 193-204. Hock, R.F. et al., Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative; v. Collections. Hock, R.F., "Why New Testament Scholars Should Read Ancient Novels," in Hock, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative , v. Collections, 121-138. Huber-Rebenich, G., "Hagiographical Fiction as Entertainment," in Hofmann, Latin Fiction 187-212, v. Collections. Lalleman, Pieter, "The Canonical and the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles," GCN IX (1998) 181-192. Thomas, C., v. Novel, General.
NACHLEBEN Agapitos, Panagiotis, "Narrative, Rhetoric and 'Drama' Rediscovered: Scholars and Poets in Byzantium Interpret Heliodorus," in Hunter, Studies in Heliodorus, v. Conference Acta, 125-126. Archibald, E., "Apollonius of Tyre in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance," in Hofmann, Latin Fiction, v. Collections, 229-237. Bertoni, C., Fusillo, M., "Heliodorus Parthenopaeus: the Aithiopika in Baroque Naples," in Hunter, Studies in Heliodorus, v. Conference Acta, 157-181. Chrysos, Evangelos, v. Achilles Tatius. Plazenet, L., "L'établissement et la délectation. Réception comparée et poétiques du roman grec en France et en Angleterre aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles," Paris (1997). Stoneman, R., v. Alex.-Romance. FORTHCOMING Achilles Tatius: Teubner, not immediately. Also a trans./commentary. Chariton: Teubner. Not immediately. Heliodorus: Loeb. Not immediately. Longus: text/trans./commentary (J.R. Morgan, Aris & Phillips); text/commentary (E.L. Bowie, Cambridge); trans./commentary (World's Classics); all well on the way. Proceedings of a conference on the novel
in Tours, Nov. 1999. |
|
RECENT LITERATURE ON THE GREEK NOVEL AND EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE by Ronald F. Hock The Greek novels and related literature have never been part of the reading list of essential books of New Testament scholars. Indeed, as late as 1996 one scholar, when using Chariton's novel in a study of a Lukan parable, misspells the name Chaereas, refers to the passage with an incomplete citation, and admits that his knowledge of the passage had come from another scholarly work. The reasons for the neglect of these detailed, comprehensive, coherent, and roughly contemporary witnesses to the very culture into which Christianity spread are many, chief among them being the continuing dominance of theological and history of religions methods in New Testament studies. Fortunately, however, there is also evidence of the beginnings of a change in this situation. The number of scholars that use the novels as an analytical tool in the study of early Christian literature and history is increasing, as will be illustrated below (for earlier scholarship, see PSN 17 [1987] 9-14). But also deserving mention for this change are two other hopeful indicators. The first is the institutionalization of the effort to incorporate the novels into the repertoire of New Testament scholars. Charles Hedrick of Southwest Missouri State was instrumental in bringing New Testament and classical scholars together within the Society of Biblical Literature to form the Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative Group, which began in 1992 (see PSN 24 [1994] 6-7) and is now in its second six-year term under the leadership of Richard I. Pervo of the University of Minnesota. A selection of papers from this Group, edited by J. Bradley Chance, Judith Perkins, and me, appeared in 1998 under the title Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Literature. Second, and partly as a consequence of this Group's activities, is the scholarship by classicists that increasingly includes early Christian narrative literature in its studies of ancient fiction, such as the studies of the apocryphal Acts by Perkins (Suffering Self) and David Konstan ("Acts of Love"), not to mention Glen Bowersock's provocative thesis (Fiction as History) that the gospels provided some of the impetus for the development of the novel. Conversely, New Testament scholars are reciprocating with insights of their own on the novels, as seen in Pervo's comprehensive survey of the issues regarding the Life of Aesop ("Nihilist Fabula") and in Lawrence M. Wills's accurate and easily accessible translation of the Life of Aesop (Quest, 181-215). There are also studies of specific subjects, such as Douglas Edwards's analysis of religion in Chariton's narrative world ("Symbols of Power," cf. "Web of Power" and Religion and Power), not to mention my studies of friendship between Chariton's Chaereas and Polycharmus ("Extraordinary Friend") and the rhetorical ethos of the novels, especially the so-called pre-sophistic novels by Chariton and Xenophon ("Rhetoric"). While such cross-disciplinary work is to be welcomed, it is still true that most recent research on the Greek novel and early Christian literature by New Testament scholars uses the former to illuminate the latter. Consequently, the following survey is designed to sample the variety of ways that New Testament scholars are making use of the Greek novel in their work on the Gospels, Acts, and other early Christian texts. I begin with the various Acts, both canonical and apocryphal, because they have in recent years proved especially amenable to comparison with the Greek novels. Pervo's groundbreaking study of the canonical Acts (Profit with Delight) has been followed up in different ways. Chance ("Prognostication") has clarified both the Acts of the Apostles and Xenophon's Ephesian Tale by comparing similarites and differences between the ways that the opening oracle of Apollo (Xenophon, 1.6.2) and Jesus' prophesy at the beginning of Acts (1:8) function in the remainder of these narratives. Dennis MacDonald ("Shipwrecks") builds on the long-recognized Homeric language in Acts 27:41 (cf. Od. 9.146-50, 546-47; 12.5-6) by marshalling many, many more parallels between the narration of the shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul and proposes that the author of Acts had the stories of Odysseus' shipwrecks in mind. Loveday Alexander has made good use of the Greek novels when reading Acts. On the one hand, she compares ("Journeyings") the role of travel in Acts with the novels and, on the other, becomes more reflective ("Genre") when tackling the on-going debate over whether Acts would have been recognized by ancient readers as history or as fiction and uses the Greek novels to point out that Acts has features that point to both. The apocryphal Acts have also received their share of attention. In addition to the surveys of these Acts by Pervo ("Ancient Novel," "Early Christian Fiction," and "Hard Act to Follow"), Melissa Aubin ("Reversing Romance") argues that the Acts of Thecla invert the values of marriage and wives that inform the novels and shows that as the narrative develops Paul is increasingly feminized and Thecla masculinized. Christine Thomas ("Stories without Texts") compares the apocryphal Acts to other novelistic narratives like the Alexander Romance, the Life of Aesop, and Xenophon's Ephesian Tale, in that they all share a striking fluidity in their textual histories, which are characterized by additions, epitomization, and multiple recensions. The Gospels have likewise been analyzed in terms of the Greek novels, although to differing degrees as Mark has received the most attention in this regard and Matthew the least. Mark's gospel, like the others, is increasingly seen, to use Mary Ann Tolbert's apt description, as "a self-consciously crafted narrative, a fiction, resulting from literary imagination" (Sowing the Gospel, 30). Consequently, the use of Greek novels as a literary backdrop for the gospels is appropriate. Thus, a spate of studies of Mark using ancient fiction has appeared: my study ("Social Experience") of the opening verses of Mark by using Longus' detailed account of the visit of Dionysophanes to his estate, in which he is preceded by slave messengers and his son, as the social correlate to the sequencing and characterization of John the Baptist and Jesus in this gospel; MacDonald's study ("Secrecy") of the so-called "Messianic secret" in Mark that can be explained more adequately by comparing it with Odysseus' need to keep his identity secret when returning to Ithaca; Whitney Shiner's study ("Creating Plot") that compares the episodic quality of Mark's narrative with that in the Life of Aesop; and Hedrick's study ("Prayer") of how readers might have responded to Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane by analyzing the way that piety is presented in Chariton's romance. In addition to these articles, there are two new book-length studies of Mark. The first is that by Wills (Quest) who argues that the similarities between Mark and John are not due to one using the other but both making use of an earlier gospel that he characterizes as an aretalogical biography that serves a cult, the closest example being the Life of Aesop. The second is MacDonald's (Homeric Epics) which is due out this spring and which argues the groundbreaking thesis that places the composition of Mark's gospel in a more literary setting, specifically one in which the Homeric epics were consciously drawn on to write the story of Jesus, such as Jesus being modelled on Hector, Bartimaeus on Teiresias, Joseph of Arimathea on Priam, and so forth. The other gospels have received less attention, but in the case of Luke's gospel we have several studies. Richard Ascough ("Narrative Technique") has insightfully discussed crowd scenes in Luke-Acts by comparing them with those in Chariton; Bernhard Heinenger (Metaphorik, 46-57) has analyzed the monologues in Chariton's and Xenophon's novels in order to interpret the parables of Jesus that are peculiar to Luke that often make use of monologues; and I have attempted ("Ancient Novels," 129-38, and "Foolish Rich Man") to clarify the parables of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) and the Foolish Rich Man (12:13-21) through appeal to the Greek novels. And in the case of John's gospel there are the studies of Jo-Ann Brant ("Divine Birth" and "Husband Hunting"). Even non-narrative texts like Paul's letters have benefitted from comparison with the Greek novels. Most intriguing is Loveday Alexander's thesis ("Better to Marry") that Paul's views on marriage in 1 Corinthians 7 have less in common with Stoic defenses of marriage, as is often supposed, than "with the imaginative world of the novelists." And, finally, I have defended ("Support") the MS reading in Phlm 9 of "old man" over the conjecture "ambassador" on the basis of the conventions of behavior regarding the obligations of children for their parents that are spelled out in the Greek novels. Alexander, Loveday, A." Better to Marry than to Burn:' St. Paul and the Greek Novel," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 235-56. -----------------, "Fact, Fiction, and the Genre of Acts," New Testament Studies44 (1998) 380-99. -----------------, "In Journeyings Often:' Voyaging in the Acts of the Apostles and in Greek Romance," in Luke's Literary Achievement: Collected Essays. C.M. Tucket, ed.; JSNT Suppl. 116; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995, 17-39. Aubin, Melissa, "Reversing Romance? The Acts of Thecla and the Ancient Novel," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 257-72. Ascough, Richard S., "Narrative Technique and Generic Designation: Crowd Scenes in Luke-Acts and in Chariton,"Catholic Biblical Quarterly 58 (1996) 69-81. Bowersock, Glen W., Fiction as History: Nero to Julian. Sather Classical Letures 58; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Brant, Jo-Ann, "Divine Birth and Apparent Parents: The Plot of the Fourth Gospel," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 199-217. -----------------, "Husband Hunting: Characterization and Narrative Art in the Gospel of John," Biblical Interpretation 4 (1996) 205-23. Chance, J. Bradley, "Divine Prognostication and the Movement of Story: An Intertextual Exploration of Xenophon's Ephesian Tale and the Acts of the Apostles," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 219-34. Cooper, Kate, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. Edwards, Douglas R., "Defining the Web of Power in Asia Minor," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62 (1994) 699-718. -----------------, "Pleasurable Reading or Symbols of Power: Religious Themes and Social Context in Chariton," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 31-46. -----------------, Religion and Power: Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greek East. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Hedrick, Charles W., "Conceiving the Narrative: Colors in Achilles Tatius and the Gospel of Mark," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 177-97. -----------------, "Representing Prayer in Mark and Chariton," Perspectives in Religious Studies 22 (1995) 239-57. Heinenger, Bernhard, Metaphorik, Erzählstruktur und szenisch-dramatische Gestaltung in den Sondergutgleichnissen bei Lukas. Aschendorff: Münster, 1991. Hock, Ronald F., "An Extraordinary Friend in Chariton's Callirhoe: The Importance of Friendship in the Greek Romances," in Greco-Roman Perspectives on Friendship. J. T. Fitzgerald, ed.; SBL Resources for Biblical Study 34; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997, 145-62. -----------------, "The Parable of the Foolish Rich Man (Luke 12:16-20) and Greco-Roman Conventions of Thought and Behavior," in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Essays in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe. J. T. Fitzgerald et al., eds.; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, forthcoming. -----------------, "The Rhetoric of Romance," in Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 B.C. - A.D. 400. S. Porter, ed.; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997, 445-65. -----------------, "Social Experience and the Beginning of the Gospel of Mark," in Reimagining Christian Origins: A Colloquium Honoring Burton L. Mack. E.A. Castelli and H. Taussig, eds.; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996, 311-26. -----------------, "A Support for his Old Age: Paul's Plea on behalf of Onesimus," in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks. L.M. White and O.L. Yarborough, eds.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995, 67-81. -----------------, "Why New Testament Scholars Should Read Ancient Novels," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 121-38. Hock, Ronald F., J. Bradley Chance, and Judith Perkins, eds., Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative. Symposium Series 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998. Konstan, David, "Acts of Love: A Narrative Pattern in the Apocryphal Acts,"Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1994) 15-36. MacDonald, Dennis R., The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. New Haven: Yale University Press, forthcoming. -----------------, "Secrecy and Recognition in the Odyssey and Mark: Where Wrede Went Wrong," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 139-53. -----------------, "The Shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul," New Testament Studies 45 (1999) 88-107. Morgan, John R., and Richard Stoneman, eds., Greek Fiction: TheGreek Novel in Context. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Perkins, Judith, The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Pervo, Richard I., "The Ancient Novel becomes Christian," in Schmeling, Novel, 685- 711. -----------------, "Early Christian Fiction," in Morgan and Stoneman, Fiction, 239-54. -----------------, "A Hard Act to Follow: The Acts of Paul and the Canonical Acts," Journal of Higher Criticism 2 (1995) 3-32. -----------------, "A Nihilist Fabula: Introducing the Life of Aesop," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 77-120. -----------------, Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of theApostles. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987. Rosen, K., "The Historian and the Gospels," Acta Classica 42 (1999) 139-154. Resists current literary interpretation of the NT. Schmeling, Gareth, ed., The Novel in the Ancient World. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996. Shiner, Whitney, "Creating Plot in Episodic Narratives: The Life of Aesop and the Gospel of Mark," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 155-76. Thomas, Christine, "Stories without Texts and without Authors: The Problem of Fluidity in Ancient Novelistic Texts and Early Christian Literature," in Hock et al., Ancient Fiction, 273-91. Tolbert, Mary Ann, Sowing the Gospel: Mark's World in Literary- Historical Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989. Wills, Lawrence M., The Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John and the Origin of the Gospel Genre. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.
by C. Jouanno If I am not mistaken, this is the first report about the Byzantine Novel in the PSN. I have included in this review of recently published books and articles (1997-1999) a couple of somewhat older "basic" works that have become standard tools for the Byzantinists. There has been a remarkable revival of
the previously much deprecated Byzantine novels in the last years, and the effort to make
these still little-known works accessible to modern readers has resulted in many new
editions, translations and anthologies, as the review below will show. CONFERENCE ACTA Medioevo romanzo e orientale. Colloqui 4.
Il viaggio dei testi, III colloquio internazionale, Venezia 10-13 ottobre 1996,
ed. A. Pioletti - R. Rizzo-Nervo, Biblioteca dell' Istituto
Ellenico di Studi Bizantini e Postbizantini di Venezia 21, Rubbettino, 1999, 622 pp. About
cultural exchanges and textual circulation; includes papers about post-Byzantine texts
such as the Prosa y verso en Griego Medieval.
Rapports (sic) of the International Congress "Neograeca Medii Aevi" III (Vitoria 1994), ed. J.M. Egea - J. Alonso, Hakkert, Amsterdam, 1996. V.
infra Smith, Badenas, Niehoff-Panayotidis, Alonso, Omatos, Ricks, Agapitos, Danezis,
Moreno-Jurado, Spadaro, Olsen. EDITIONS AND TRANSLATIONS V. Digenes Akrites
(Jeffreys, Jouanno, Odorico, Rizzo Nervo), Prodromos (Plepelits),
Vernacular Novels (Betts, Cupane), Achilleid (Smith-Agapitos-Hult), Polemos tês
Troados (Jeffreys-Papathômopoulou), Sôphrosune (Schönauer). NOVEL, GENERAL P. A. Agapitos, "Narrative, Rhetoric and 'Drama' Rediscovered: Scholars and Poets in Byzantium Interpret Heliodoros", in R. Hunter (ed.), Studies in Heliodorus, Cambridge Philological Society, Supplementary Volume 21, Cambridge, 1998, 125-156. About the reception of Heliodorus from the 9th to the 12th century, with a thorough examination of the often quoted testimonies of Photios and Psellos. The ancient novel was perceived by these authors as 'drama' in the Byzantine meaning of the word, which implied pathos and rhetoric. The revival of erotic narrative in the mid-12th-century Constantinople must be seen as a logical conclusion of this Byzantine reading of the ancient novel as 'tragedy': the new works are marked by a strong tendency to dramatisation and make an intensive use of all means of rhetorical amplification and tragic rearrangement. W.J. Aerts, "Das literarische Porträt in der byzantinischen Literatur", Groningen Colloquia on the Novel 8, 1997, 151-195. Special attention is paid to portraits in epics (Digenes Akrites), in learned and vernacular novels (Achilleid, Belthandros); influence of the ancient novel's standards; penetration of the 'romantic type' description into Byzantine historical works (Psellos, Anna Comnena). R. Beaton, The Medieval Greek Romance, 2nd ed., Routledge, London -NY, 1996, 301 pp. A revised and enlarged version of the 1989 edition ; the 'Afterword' (pp. 207-227) surveys the most important items that have attracted the attention of scholars since 1987 till the end of 1994, and presents a response to the harsh (and often unfair) criticisms expressed by P.A. Agapitos and O. Smith in The Study of Medieval Greek Romance (1992). -----------------, "The Byzantine Revival of the Ancient Novel," in The Novel in the Ancient World, ed. G. Schmeling, Leiden, 1996, 713-733. A general survey of the place of the Byzantine novel after the end of the ancient world. -----------------, "Critical Studies. 'In the Goddess' Name I Summon You': Byzantine and Modern (Greek) Fortunes of the Ancient Novel", BMGS 21, 1997, 231-245. A review of three books on the Greek and Byzantine novel published in 1996 (S. MacAlister, Dreams and Suicides; H. Tonnet, Histoire du roman grec; M.A. Doody, The True Story of the Novel : v. infra). C. Cupane, "Bisanzio e la letteratura della Romania. Peregrinazioni del romanzo medievale", in Medioevo romanzo e orientale, 31-49. The great difference between 12th c. learned and 14th c. vernacular novels (which have dropped a good deal of the Hellenistic legacy and present new structures and new myths) may be seen as a consequence of the Byzantines' cultural contacts with the West, and as a proof of the Byzantine ability to assimilate foreign influences and turn them to profit. Earlier traces of the same capacity are to be found between the 9th and the 11th c. -- golden age for the cultural exchanges with the East, as testify the translations of Syntipas, Stephanites and Barlaam. M.A. Doody, The True Story of the Novel, Rutgers University Press, NY, 1996, 580 pp. + 38 plates. Covers two thousands years of literary history and quotes works written in a dozen languages. The first part of the book focuses on the ancient novel (Greek and Latin), the second on the continuity of the genre down to the 18th century (with a significant place made for Byzantine texts), the third offers a synchronic examination of the 'tropes' of the novel. S. MacAlister, Dreams and Suicides : the Greek Novel from Antiquity to the Byzantine Empire, Routledge, London-NY, 1996, IX-235 pp. An attempt to track the peculiarity and inventiveness of the 12th c. novels, by examining the way they adapted two important items of their Greek models, dreams and suicides. An interesting study is devoted to the "interim period" (4th - 11th c.), with the hagiographical literature as a substitute for romantic narrative [review in BZ 91, 1998, 166-171, by C. Cupane]. P. Odorico, "L'amour à Byzance", Europe-Revue littéraire mensuelle, 75ème année, no 822, oct. 1997, 34-46. About the scarcity of considerations about love in Byzantine literature (with the exception of the mystical love of God and the fraternal link of friendship in God). Even the 12th-century erotic novels do not include a real exploration of the amorous feeling and it is only in the works of the last Byzantine period (vernacular 14th-century novels) that love really becomes the object of an attentive inquiry. D. Reinsch, "Zwischen Hoch- und Volkssprache -- Romane und Heldenlieder", in Brockhaus. Die Bibliothek, Kunst und Kultur, Bd 3, Leipzig / Mannheim, 1997, 669-671. F. Rizzo Nervo, "Percorsi della cornice narrativa", Medioevo romanzo e orientale, 251-259. In this general survey about narrative texts, special emphasis is put on oriental novel (Barlaam, Sindbad / Syntipas, Kalila and Dimna) and 14th c. vernacular novels (Callimachos, Libistros). P. Schreiner, "Der Austauch von literarischen Motiven und Ideen zwischen Ost und West im Mittelmeerraum", in Europa Medievale e il Mondo Bizantino, Contatti effettivi e possibilita di studi comparati (Tavola rotonda del XVIII congresso del CISH, Montreal, 29 agosto 1995), ed. G. Arnali - G. Cavallo, Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo (Nuovi studi storici 40), Rome, 1997, 73-80. Among other examples of cultural exchanges between East and West Schreiner quotes the Latin translation of Barlaam (1048) and the production of Imberios, based upon a cloister-foundation legend probably brought to Byzantium by Cistercian monks from South France. The conclusion is that exchange of ideas and motifs did not rest only on oral tradition, but also needed a written basis to develop. O.L. Smith, "Towards a New Approach to the Byzantine Romances", in Prosa y verso, 331-339. Opposing the theory of a literary diglossia between vernacular and learned romance, Smith underlines the existence of learned elements with important literary function in the vernacular texts: he concludes that the public of vernacular romances cannot have been very different from that of the learned works. Examples are drawn mostly from the Achilleid. H. Tonnet, Histoire
du roman grec (des origines à 1960), L'Harmattan,
Série Études Grecques, Paris, 1996, 304 pp. Although the purpose of the book is to show
the existence of a united tradition of fictional writing in Greek language, the focus is
mainly put upon the different trends of the novel as a genre in modern Greece, and the
chapters devoted to Greek and Byzantine texts are rather swift. BARLAAM AND IOASAPH P. Badenas, "Metafrasis
en griego vulgar de la Historia de Barlaam y Josaphat",
in Prosa y verso, 59-73. About adaptations of Barlaam in E. Khintibidze, "New Materials on the Origin of Barlaam and Ioasaph", Orientalia Christiana Periodica 63, 1997, 491-501. New arguments to support the authorship of Euthymios the Georgian in the last quarter of the 10th century. S. Kotzabassi, "Ein unbekanntes Fragment des Barlaam und Joasaph Romans", Byzantinische Zeitschrift 92, 2, 1999, 471-473. G. Scarcia, "Sull' origine di Ioasaf", in Medioevo romanzo e orientale, 381-392. Syrian origins of Ioasaph, and not Indian ones ? R. Volk, "Symeon Metaphrastes -- ein Benutzer des Barlaam-Romans", Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici 33, 1996, 67-180. A comparison
of the Barlaam Romance with the texts of fifteen Metaphrastic Lives : twelve of
them show an influence of the hagiographic novel, the Passio of St Catherina and the Lives
of St Martinianos, Aberkios, Zenobios, Bonifatios, John Kalybites, Ioannikios from
Bithynia, Thekla, Barbara, Polyeuktes, Stephanos the Younger, Thomas the Apostle (whose
text is reedited and paraphrased by Volk p. 148-167). Symeon Metaphrastes thus appears as
the first known user of the Barlaam romance, whose text he read not in its Urform,
but in one of its successive rewritings (most often the B modification). STEPHANITES AND ICHNELATES H. Condylis-Bassoukos, Stéphanitès kai Ichnélatès, traduction grecque (XIème s.) du livre Kalila wa-Dimna d'Ibn al-Muqaffa (VIIIème siècle). Étude lexicologique et littéraire, Académie Royale de Belgique, Classe des Lettres, Fonds René Draguet, t. 11, Aedibus Peeters, Louvain, 1997, XXXI + 239 pp. A study of the acculturisation process in Stephanites. The work is based on a methodical comparison of the Greek text with its Arabic original. The task was complicated by the inadequacy / lack of editions of both Greek and Arabic (numerous) versions of the novel; the results nevertheless seem conclusive thanks to the additional resorting to Syriac versions and later testimonies of the Arabic version in Hebrew and Spanish translations. Y.
Niehoff-Panayotidis, "Original arabe y adaptacion neogriega :
el caso del Calila y Dimna", in Prosa y verso,
267-273. TWELFTH-CENTURY NOVELS GENERAL R. Harder, "Die Funktion der Briefe im byzantinischen Roman des 12. Jahrhunderts", in Die antike Roman und seine mittelalterliche Rezeption, ed. M. Picone - B. Zimmermann, Birkhäuser, Basel-Boston (Mass.)-Berlin, 1997, 231-244. About love letters in Macrembolites and Eugenianos; originality of the latter who, unlike Macrembolites, faithful to his ancient models and their narrative use of epistolographic material, inserts letters akin to lyric poetry and progymnasmata -- an illustration of the validity of Bachtin's concept of heteroglossy in Byzantine novel. E. Jeffreys, "The Novels of Mid-Twelfth Century Constantinople. The Literary and Social Context", in Aetos. Studies in honour of C. Mango, ed. I. Sevcenko -- I. Hutter, Teubner, Stuttgart -- Leipzig, 1998, 191-199. About the audience of the 12th c. novels, their social and cultural background: the reemergence of the genre in the 1140s / 1150s has to be connected with "the romantic tastes of the Comnenian aristocracy and the academic pretensions of its followers" -- as implied by the high level of literacy of the texts, which E. Jeffreys defines as a "superlative act of mimesis". F. Meunier, "Le voyage imaginaire dans le roman byzantin du XIIème siècle", Byzantion
68, 1, 1998, 72-90. About external / geographical, and internal / initiatic journey in
Greek and Byzantine novel. The author underlines the lesser extension of Byzantine
journeys and the frequent imprecision of their geographical setting: she interprets this
new trend as a result of the (very controversial) 12th-century crisis. She regrettably
ignores much recent work about the Byzantine novel and still quotes the old Hercher
edition (1859) as <<la
meilleure à ce jour>> !
EUSTATHIOS MACREMBOLITES I. Nilsson, "Phantasia: A Wise and Subtle Artist. Visualizing a Twelfth-Century Ekphrasis", in Kairos. Studies in Art History and Literature in Honour of Professor G. Äkerström-Hougen, ed. E. Piltz - P. Äström, Paul Äström Förlag, Jonsered, 1998, 50-65. An attempt to recreate the mental pictures of a Byzantine reading the descriptions of Macrembolites' novel, by reference to the 12th c. paintings preserved in three Byzantine churches of Cyprus, adorned in a sophisticated, Constantinopolitan style. THEODOROS PRODROMOS R.E. Harder, "Diskurse über die Gastlichkeit im Roman des Theodoros Prodromos", in Groningen Colloquia on the Novel 8, 1997, 131-149. About the five banquet-scenes included in Prodromos' novel -- four Greek banquets, whose main function is to structure the love-story, and one Barbarian anti-banquet, with a political function, as shown by a comparison of the episode with the Byzantine imperial court's practises. K. Plepelits, Theodoros
Prodromos, Rhodanthe und Dosikles, Bibliothek der griechischen Literatur Bd 42,
A. Hiersemann, Stuttgart, 1996, 182 pp. A translation regrettably based not on the recent
edition of Marcovich (1992), but on the updated text of Hercher (1859), by the translator
of Macrembolites (in the same collection, Bd 29, Stuttgart, 1989). With a short 21 page
introduction about the chronological and geographical setting of the novel, the names of
the characters, the style and language of the work [review in Byzantion 68, 1,
1998, 224-225, by F. Meunier; in BZ 91, 1998, 185-190, by C. Cupane; in JÖB
48, 1998, 360-363, by M. Grünbart]. VERNACULAR NOVELS GENERAL J. Alonso, G. Betts, Three Medieval Greek Romances: Velthandros and Chrysandza, Kallimachos and Chrysorroi, Livistros and Rodamni, Garland Library of Medieval Literature vol. 98, Series B, NY -- London, 1995, XLI - 192 pp.. A translation of three 14th c. vernacular texts, with a general introduction about the evolution of the novel as a literary genre from Antiquity to late Byzantium [review in REB 55, 1997, 364 ; in BMGS 21, 1997, 258-259, by E. Jeffreys, who has theoretical reservations about the translation of texts whose edition is not satisfactory]. C. Cupane, Romanzi cavallereschi bizantini, Classici Greci, Utet, Torino, 1995, 734 pp. The companion piece to F. Conca's Il romanzo bizantino del XII secolo, published in the same collection in 1994. The Byzantine vernacular production being richer than the learned one, C. Cupane had to make a choice and selected six texts representative of the different trends of the genre: purely Byzantine novels such as Callimachos, Belthandros and the Achilleid; adaptations from the West such as Florios and Apollonios; and an allegorical narrative, the Logos Parêgorêtikos Dystychias kai Eutychias. The texts whose textual tradition requires further investigation have been deliberately put aside, hence the absence of Libistros. For the six texts given in the book, a systematic recollation has been carried out between the most recent editions and the manuscripts. The introduction provides a comprehensive picture of the Late Byzantine novel [review in REB 55, 1997, 303-304 by M. Cacouros ; in JÖB 47, 1997, 307-310 by R. Beaton]. M. Lassithiotakis, "Le personnage du 'chevalier errant' dans la littérature byzantine vulgaire et post-byzantine", Medioevo romanzo e orientale, 189-205. About the adaptation of the well-known Western motif of the wandering knight in a Byzantine (and post-Byzantine) context. The author reviews a large set of vernacular texts (from Digenes Akrites to Erotocritos, including Neo-hellenic versions of the Alexander Romance): he concludes with a progressive reduction of heroic themes to the benefit of chivalric motifs. R. Lavagnini, "Storie troiane in greco volgare", Posthomerica I. Tradizioni omeriche dall' Antichita al Rinascimento, ed. F. Montanari - S. Pittaluga, Università di Genova, Facolta di Lettere, Genova, 1997, 49-62. In a survey about Trojan stories in Byzantium, considerations on the Byzantine Iliad and the Achilleid as "romans d'Antiquité" based upon entirely Byzantine sources. O. Omatos, DIGENES AKRITES R. Beaton, J. Kelly,
and T. Lentarê, G. de Boel, "La mort de Digénis Akritis dans le roman et dans les chants", Byzantion 69, 1, 1999, 24-57. About the controversial question of the relationship between the epic of DA and the folksongs: de Boel pronounces in favour of the priority of the epic, which he considers as the source of the songs. L. Garland, "Byzantium's Age of Chivalry: The Historical Context of Digenes Akrites and the Akritic Songs", Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 12/13, 1996/1997, 573-589. A review article of R. Beaton and D. Ricks (ed.), Digenes Akrites: New Approaches to Byzantine Heroic Poetry (1993). M. Jeffreys, "Digenis Akritis: The Use of Later Manuscripts to reconstruct the Escorial Version", Byzantion 67, 1997, 60-69. A critical view of the principles used by St. Alexiou in his edition of the Escorial version (Athens, 1985); unreliability of the Z version for a reconstruction of E: "The scribe of the compilation Z was reacting as an editor to the readings of E and trying to make sense of them, just like modern editors". E. Jeffreys, Digenis Akritis. The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions, Cambridge Medieval Classics 7, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge-NY-Melbourne, 1998, LXII - 398 pp. A new edition of the two major versions of DA, with an English translation and a condensed introduction which takes stock of all the main headings of Acritic studies. -----------------, "Byzantium's Epic Past: A Twelfth-Century Perspective", in T.W. Hillard et alii (eds.), Ancient History in a Modern University, vol. 2, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1998, 445-452. C. Jouanno, Digénis Akritas, le héros des frontières. Une épopée byzantine, Brepols, Témoins de notre histoire, Turnhout, 1998, 320 pp. A translation of the Grottaferrata version and an historical and literary analysis of the text. P. Odorico, Digenis Akritas: poema anonimo bizantino, Giunti, Firenze, 1995, 235 p.. An Italian translation of the Grottaferrata version, with a preface by E.V. Maltese about Digenis as a border-hero. -----------------, "L'akritas a-t-il bâti un château?", Actes de la Conférence "Le Sud-Est européen, carrefour de civilisations" (Siège de l'Unesco, Paris, 9-10 févr. 1998), Association Internationale d'Études du Sud-Est européen, Bulletin 28, 1998-1999, no spécial, p. 199-204. An attempt to define the identity of the akritai; the epic of DA is to be seen as the expression of a Greek-speaking world situated outside the Byzantine state, and largely open to crossings and confrontations. D.G. Petalas, D. Ricks, "Maximou's Metamorphoses", in Prosa y verso, 321-330. Study of the Maximou episode in order to show "diagnostically" to what degree each of the versions of DA differs from its predecessor. F. Rizzo Nervo, Dighenis
Akritis. Versione dell' Escorial, Medioevo Romanzo e Orientale, Testi 3,
Rubbettino, 1996, 201 pp. After Rick's English translation of the Escorial version (1990),
an Italian translation based on Alexiou's edition (1985), with a significant number of
emendations of the text. Much of the 56 page introduction is devoted to a comparison of
the G and E versions: the conclusion is that the G version reflects Constantinopolitan
views about morals and society, whereas E is more open to Oriental influences. G
consequently describes the heroic world of Digenes from the outside, whereas E describes
it from the inside. LIBISTROS AND RHODAMNE P.A. Agapitos, G. Danezis, " J.A. Moreno Jurado, "Tormentos de amor en la Aquileida y en Livistro y Rodamna," in Prosa y verso, 259-265. ACHILLEID O.L. Smith , The Byzantine Achilleid: the Naples Version, edited and prepared for publication by P.A. Agapitos and K. Hult, Wiener Byzantinische Studien 21, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 1999, XII-231 pp. A critical edition of the second of the three known versions of the Achilleid (Smith already published the Oxford version in Copenhagen, 1990). With an extended literary commentary on the text (p. 77-154) and four appendices: 1) the reproduction of the Oxford version (without critical apparatus), 2) a study about narrator and audience in medieval Greek vernacular literature, 3) a study about sexuality and sexual morality in Byzantine romance, 4) remarks about the language of the London version. G. Spadaro, " IMBERIOS AND MARGARONA V. Pecoraro, "Qamar az-Zaman, Pierre de Provence," POLEMOS TÊS TROADOS E.M. Jeffreys - M.
Papathômopoulou, THESEIS B. Olsen, SÔPHROSUNÊ S. Schönauer, Untersuchungen
zum Steinkatalog des Sophrosyne- Gedichtes des Meliteniotes mit kritischer Edition der
Verse 1107-1247, Meletemata Bd 6, Hamburg, 1996, 208 pp. A linguistic and literary
study of Meliteniotes' ekphrasis, with a palaeographic investigation about the codex
unicus of the text and a new edition of the verses 1107-1247 containing the description of
Sophrosyne's precious bed. FORTHCOMING P.A. Agapitos, L'épopée romane au Moyen Âge et aux temps modernes. Actes du XIVème Congrès International de la Société Rencesvals (Naples, 24-30 juill. 1997), 2000 (will include papers about Digenis). Les personnages du roman grec (Tours, November 1999), ed. B. Pouderon - Chr. Huntziger, Presses de la Maison de l'Orient Méditerranéen, Lyon (papers on 12th c. novel, Digenes and the Achilleid). Der Roman im Byzanz der Komnenenzeit. Ein internationales Symposium (Berlin, April 1998), ed. P.A. Agapitos - D.R. Reinsch, Meletemata 8, Wiesbaden, 2000 (devoted entirely to 12th-century narrative). Strangers to Themselves,
ed. D. Smythe, Aldershot, 2000 (will include papers about Digenis and
Byzantine novel). |
visits
since 21 June 2000
for a visual representation, Ganymedes snatched up by a
divine creature as portrayed on the ceiling of the Basilica Sotterranea in Rome, is
adduced. 
7 (1997) 27-41. The Satyrica, Greek novels, New Testament writers.
Athens 1996. Translation. 
Note on Achilles Tatius 1.9.4-5, 5.13.4,"CQ 49 (1999) 339-341. Ach. Tat. on visual perception; probably referring
to the well-known discussion at Plato Phdr. 251, but also strongly reminiscent of
the 2nd C. Epicurean school (cf. Diogenes of Oenoanda). 
: réflexions sur le statut des jeunes dans le roman de Chariton d'Aphrodisias," REG 111 (1998) 518-550.
,
which will not be listed in this report. V. infra Cupane, Scarcia, Lassithiotakis,
Rizzo Nervo, Pecoraro. 
in Mount
Athos and in Cretan context (XVth -- XVIIth c.). 
, in Prosa
y verso, 17-28. About metric problems: quotations from Digenes Akrites and the Achilleid.
, in Prosa y verso, 287-298. About one of the items
of ideal beauty in Byzantium; quotations from Digenes Akrites, Belthandros, Imberios,
Achilleid. 
, Panepistêmiakês
Ekdoseis Krêtês, 1995, 360 pp. A concordance to DA, version E. 
, Diss. Athens, Alea,
1995, 282 pp. 
, in Prosa y verso,
1-16. 
",
in Prosa y verso, 111-137. Presents (among others) new testimonies from Libistros.
, in Prosa
y verso, 341-348. 
", in Medioevo
romanzo e orientale, 515-534. Although a direct adaptation of Pierre de Provence,
Imberios preserves some features peculiar to the Oriental model of the French romance,
Qamar az-Zaman (1001 Nights, no 170-217) and to its first Western versions. The fact may be due to the
existence in Byzantium of a preexistent tradition of the same story elaborated directly
from Oriental sources. 
(the War of Troy). 
Athens,
1996, CXXXVII - 750 pp. - 8 plates. Editio princeps of a 14,400 line romance,
transmitted through five major manuscripts and two substantial fragments, varying
considerably in wording and linguistic pretensions. The long introduction (in English)
contains an analysis of the text, discussion of its sources (with a survey about the
legends of Troy from late Antiquity to the Middle Ages -- in Western Europe and
Byzantium), a careful comparison of the Greek work with its French original, the Roman
de Troie by Benoît de Sainte Maure, sections about Language (a poetic Kunstsprache
required by a tradition of oral poetry in political verse?), Formulae, Metre, Manuscripts,
Illustrations (in the Par. Gr. 2978), Manuscript Relationships and the Principles of the
edition. The chapters about formulae, metre, manuscript relationships and the principles
of the edition are due to the collaboration of Michael Jeffreys [review in REB 55,
1997, 346-347, by M.H. Congourdeau; in BMGS 22, 1998, 328-332, by T. Lentari].
, in Prosa y verso, 281-285. 
, Athens, 2000.
and 
from a grammatical and
lexical point of view. With a structure traditionally considered close to the novel, the
apocryphal writings under review tell us about some of the ups and downs experienced by
the apostles Paul and Peter during their preaching in the communities of Asia Minor and
Rome, as well as the circumstances of their death. 
), word
order and stylistics (pp. 63-96), the second one dealing with lexical uses. In the internal
analysis (pp. 101-129) I compare the words that appear only in the three texts
studied, in the external one (pp. 133-324) -- with several chapters devoted to
Atticisms (pp. 193-253), colloquialisms, literary terms attested in the Attic prose,
poetic terms, Ionicisms, late terms, Christian words (pp. 255-267), unusual terms
(pp. 269-276), terms originating in Latin (pp. 277-290) and proper names (pp. 291-324 -- I
compare the texts to non-literary (papyri, inscriptions,...) or literary works, as well as
to different stages of language, relatively contemporary or included in a common
tradition, like the one concerning the historian Flavius Iosephus in the lst
century A.D. and Plutarch in the 1st - 2nd century A.D., ancient
Greek novels or New Testament canonical works, particularly that of Luke. The book ends
with general conclusions (pp. 325-341) and a bibliographical index (pp. 343-353). 
could have been written by the same unknown author. Colloquialisms
stand out because of their paucity. The existence of literary terms attested in the Attic
prose in our texts is revealed, but in a very limited percentage and not in all of them.
There is a very sparse use of poetic terms (although we can find more implied forms than
in the case of the Attic prose), very far from their proliferation in other relatively
contemporary authors. The moderate presence of Ionisms, with their closeness to the spoken
language, could be considered outstanding, but more from a phonetic-morphologic point of
view. The existence of terms close to the language of medicine, but coming from a common
popular substratum, and the abundance of late terms and those denominated Christian
words, speak clearly about the language level which we propose for our texts: the Acta
Petri et Pauli are created for their final purpose, to be intelligible to the largest
number of readers; therefore, content prevail over form in them. Finally about the
possible generic ascription of this kind of writing: the specialists, headed by Söder,
lean toward the ancient novel, but that is something debatable: following Vielhauer, I
propose a combination of stories concerning 
(res)
and fiction 
(verba), all reelaborated as
. 
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