Preposterous Poetics
The Politics and Aesthetics of Form in Late Antiquity

Explores how literary form changes when Christianity and rabbinic Judaism take shape.

Simon Goldhill (Author)

9781108494823, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 September 2020

326 pages, 1 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.609 kg

'This interesting, expertly written, and provocative volume investigates late antiquity through the lens of its various literary forms. In addition, it aims to trouble some of the customary scholarly understandings of late antiquity that are likewise rendered through the analysis of literary texts. … The volume astutely draws upon multiple genres, multiple literary traditions, and a wide range of texts from early to late antiquity, from Homer to the Babylonian Talmud, to indicate the cross-influence of literary form and political and social culture. One of its significant strengths is its detailed engagement with understudied and underappreciated ancient texts, which here become the 'indices' of cultural change.' Nina E. Livesey, Review of Biblical Literature

How does literary form change as Christianity and rabbinic Judaism take shape? What is the impact of literary tradition and the new pressures of religious thinking? Tracing a journey over the first millennium that includes works in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, this book changes our understanding of late antiquity and how its literary productions make a significant contribution to the cultural changes that have shaped western Europe.

1. Forms of attention: time and narrative in Ecphrasis
2. When size matters: erotics, the epyllion, and Colluthus' Rape of Helen
3. In the beginning
4. Preposterous poetics and the erotics of death
5. Strange dogs: Joseph and Aseneth and the dynamics of transformation
6. Life forms: biography and rabbinical writing coda
Acknowledgements
Bibliography. Index.

Subject Areas: Educational: Religious studies: Judaism [YQRN1], Educational: Religious studies: Christianity [YQRC], Educational: Religious studies [YQR], Judaism [HRJ], Christianity [HRC], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Literature: history & criticism [DS]