The Cambridge Companion to Lucian

An innovative introduction to the major themes and works of Lucian and to his influence in the West.

Simon Goldhill (Edited by)

9781009170390, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 November 2024

474 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 2.5 cm, 0.67 kg

Lucian is one of the most prolific and wide-ranging writers from antiquity and one of the most influential and controversial. His work is deeply embedded in the cultural and religious politics of the Greek world in the Roman Empire, but also played an important role in later periods, particularly during the Renaissance, and was considered a crucial example of the inherited wisdom of classical antiquity. Lucian's prose is limpid and elegant as well as sharply funny and full of great stories, dramatic dialogues, and brilliant satire. This Companion, written by world-leading scholars, introduces the major themes of his corpus and provides more detailed studies of individual works. Readers will be able to appreciate his major contributions to the history of satire, comic dialogues, religion, art, and erotics as well as being given a snapshot of the most important episodes in his work's reception in the West.

List of illustrations
List of contributors
1. Introduction Simon Goldhill
Part I. 2. Lucian and the culture of criticism Richard Hunter
3. Lucian's poetics Emma Greensmith
4. Lucian and philosophy Peter van Nuffelen
5. On believing in Lucian: the religious polemics Tim Whitmarsh
6. Lucian and art history Jas Elsner
7. Some queer entanglements in Lucian's Erotes Alistair Blanshard
Part II. 8. In praise of the fly Emily Kneebone
9. Lucian's Phalaris Peter Thonemann
10. Lucian the doorkeeper: inside and outside in Lucianic Poetics Marco Formisano
11. Geographical authority and bodily entanglements in Lucian's True Histories Jason König
12. Menippus goes to the moon: fantastical astronomy and Lucian's scientific imagination Karen ni Mhealligh
13. Lucian and Christianity Eleni Bozia
14. Identification and distance in Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans: subjects and their absences Dawn LaValle Norman
15. 'Here's Looking at You…': the dialogues of the gods and the erotics of the visual Simon Goldhill
Part III. 16. Lucian of Samosata in renaissance Italy Irene Fantappié
17. Lucian goes north: the Luciani opuscula of Erasmus and Thomas More James Romm
18. From the eighteenth to the nineteenth century: Voltaire, Leopardi and a new avenue of philosophical critique Giacomo Loi
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]