Writing Biography in Greece and Rome
Narrative Technique and Fictionalization

Explores narrative techniques in ancient biography and how they fictionalize narrative.

Koen De Temmerman (Edited by), Kristoffel Demoen (Edited by)

9781107129122, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 May 2016

354 pages
23.5 x 16.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.64 kg

Ancient biography is now a well-established and popular field of study among classicists as well as many scholars of literature and history more generally. In particular biographies offer important insights into the dynamics underlying ancient performance of the self and social behaviour, issues currently of crucial importance in classical studies. They also raise complex issues of narrativity and fictionalization. This volume examines a range of ancient texts which are or purport to be biographical and explores how formal narrative categories such as time, space and character are constructed and how they address (highlight, question, thematize, underscore or problematize) the borderline between historicity and fictionality. In doing so, it makes a major contribution not only to the study of ancient biographical writing but also to broader narratological approaches to ancient texts.

Preface
Part I. Ancient Biography Revisited: 1. Ancient biography and formalities of fiction Koen De Temmerman
2. Civic and subversive biography in antiquity David Konstan and Robyn Walsh
Part II. Individual Biographies: 3. Life of Aesop: fictional biography as popular literature? Grammatiki Karla
4. Parallel narratives and possible worlds in Plutarch's Life of Artaxerxes Eran Almagor
5. Lucian's Life of Demonax: the Socratic paradigm, individuality and personality Mark Beck
6. The Apologia as a mise en abyme in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana Patrick Robiano
7. The emended monk: the Greek translation of Jerome's Vita Malchi Christa Gray
8. The divided cloak as redemptio militiae: Biblical stylization and hagiographical intertextuality in Sulpicius Severus' Vita Martini Danny Praet
Part III. Collective Biographies: 9. Mirroring virtues in Plutarch's Lives of Agis, Cleomenes and Gracchi Maarten De Pourcq and Geert Roskam
10. Dying philosophers in ancient biography: Zeno the Stoic and Epicurus Eleni Kechagia
11. Never say die! Assassinating emperors in Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars Rhiannon Ash
12. Poetry and fiction in Suetonius' Illustrious Men Tristan Power
13. Qui vitas aliorum scribere orditur: narratological implications of fictional authors in the Historia Augusta Diederik Burgersdijk
Part IV. Biographical Modes of Discourse: 14. Chion of Heraclea: letters and the life of a tyrannicide John Paul Christy
15. Brief encounter: timing and biographical representation in the Ps.-Hippocratic letters Ranja Knöbl
16. A shaggy thigh story: Kalasiris on the life of Homer (Heliodorus 3.14) Luke V. Pitcher.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Biography: general [BG]