“Dué argues that the attested multiforms of the Iliad—in ancient quotations, on papyrus, and in the scholia of medieval manuscripts—give us glimpses of the very long history of the text, access to even earlier Iliads, and a greater awareness of the mechanisms by which such a remarkable poem could be composed in performance. Using methodologies grounded in an understanding of Homeric poetry as a system, Achilles Unbound argues for nothing… Read more
Pierre Judet de La Combe in his book Homère (2017) evokes the gifts of the gods which are ambiguous and double-edged. One example he mentions is Demodokos: 62 The herald came near, bringing with him a singer, very trusted, 63 whom the Muse loved exceedingly. She gave him both a good thing and a bad thing. 64 For she took away from him his eyes but gave him the sweetness… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Patricia Hatcher, CUNY Graduate Center, to join members of the Kosmos Society for an Open House discussion on Rites of Passage and the Making of Achilles in Statius’ Achilleid. This talk applies anthropological ritual theory to Statius’ Achilleid to reinterpret Achilles’ early life as a series of rites of passage. Drawing on Arnold van Gennep’s tripartite model and Victor Turner’s concept of liminality, the discussion… Read more
~ A guest post by Brian Prescott-Decie ~ In the course of searching for simple texts for a student of Latin who has been making rather heavy weather of Agricola, and needed some light relief, I recently came across the History of Apollonius, King of Tyre, a Latin romantic novel of perhaps the third century CE. By the purest serendipity, I then found myself reading the following lines of the… Read more
In January 2024, I went back to the Department of Prints and Drawings in the Louvre to access some paintings and drawings which are not shown in the Museum. I followed the same procedure to have the authorization to look at, consult and take pictures of the specific artworks kept at the Louvre. I wanted to see a painting, which was acquired by the Louvre a few years before the… Read more