Narratology and Interpretation

The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature

Jonas Grethlein, Antonios Rengakos, Jonas Grethlein, Antonios Rengakos

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9783110214529
• eBook ISBN: 9783110214536
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: Literature

The categories of classical narratology have been successfully applied to ancient texts in the last two decades, but in the meantime narratological theory has moved on. In accordance with these developments, Narratology and Interpretation draws out the subtler possibilities of narratological analysis for the interpretation of ancient texts. The contributions explore the heuristic fruitfulness of various narratological categories and show that, in combination with other approaches such as studies in deixis, performance studies and reader-response theory, narratology can help to elucidate the content of narrative form. Besides exploring new theoretical avenues and offering exemplary readings of ancient epic, lyric, tragedy and historiography, the volume also investigates ancient predecessors of narratology.

Table of contents

• Frontmatter
• Contents
• Introduction
• The Theory and Practice of Narrative in Plato
• The Trojan Oration of Dio Chrysostom and Ancient Homeric Criticism
• Narratological Concepts in Greek Scholia
• Metalepsis in Ancient Greek Literature
• Homer, Odysseus, and the Narratology of Performance
• Speech Act Types, Conversational Exchange, and the Speech Representational Spectrum in Homer
• Philosophical and Structuralist Narratologies – Worlds Apart?
• Chance or Design? Language and Plot Management in the Odyssey. Klytaimnestra άλοχος μυηστή έμήσατο
• Arete’s Words: Etymology, Ehoie-Poetry and Gendered Narrative in the Odyssey
• Narratology, Deixis, and the Performance of Choral Lyric. On Pindar’s First Pythian Ode
• Apollonius Rhodius as an (anti-)Homeric Narrator: Time and Space in the Argonautica
• ‘Snapshots’ of Myth: The Notion of Time in Hellenistic Epyllion
• Aeneid 5.362 – 484: Time, Epic and the Analeptic Gauntlets
• Sophocles and the Narratology of Drama
• Layered Stories in Aeschylus’ Persians
• Narrative Technique in the Parodos of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon
• Knowing a Story’s End: Future Reflexive in the Tragic Narrative of the Argive Expedition Against Thebes
• Ignorant Narrators in Greek Tragedy
• Names and Narrative Techniques in Xenophon’s Anabasis
• The Perils of Expectations: Perceptions, Suspense and Surprise in Polybius’
• Seeing through Caesar’s Eyes: Focalisation and Interpretation
• History beyond Literature: Interpreting the ‘Internally Focalized’ Narrative in Livy’s Ab urbe condita
• Fame’s Narratives. Epic and Historiography
• Backmatter