Papers by Sheila Murnaghan
Oxford Scholarship Online
This chapter examines historical fiction for children set in antiquity, taking note of the genre’... more This chapter examines historical fiction for children set in antiquity, taking note of the genre’s intermediate status as a source of historical information that also shares the fictionality of myth and solicits the modern reader’s identification with characters from a different era. The relationship between historical fiction and national identity is explored through American novels set in the Roman world. Compared to works by British authors like Rudyard Kipling, which use Roman Britain as a context for themes of British identity and imperialism, works for American children by Reuben Wells, Paul Anderson, and Caroline Dale Snedeker make the scenes of Roman history into versions of such American settings as the new world of colonial exploration, the frontier, and the homeland of World War I.
Routledge eBooks, Oct 24, 2018
American Journal of Philology, 1992
The Classical Journal, 2013
Classical Review, Oct 1, 2008
representations of poets in Old Comedy. Especially remarkable is Cratinus’ portrayal in Pytine of... more representations of poets in Old Comedy. Especially remarkable is Cratinus’ portrayal in Pytine of Comedy as his wife, estranged and demanding a divorce because he is boozing instead of composing. ‘Lawcourt Dramas: Acting and Performance in Legal Oratory’ is a relatively straightforward examination of the dramatic aspects of Athenian litigation, including the importance of delivery, costume and correct movement. The chapter ‘Singing Roles in Tragedy’ looks at both the evidence of vocal techniques and the social meanings of actors’ songs. H. develops and considers the observation made by Paul Maas (in Greek Metre, § 76, p. 20 in the 1962 Lloyd-Jones translation) that low-status characters do not normally sing, although they may perform anapaests. H. notes that this rule does not apply to enslaved nobles. On the other hand, gods do not sing, and Athenian males tend not to sing. Singing is gendered, so that barbarian males sing because they are e¶eminised, although Sophocles has protagonists, male and female, sing in extreme physical or mental anguish. It concludes with some very quick remarks about how Athenian tragedy appropriates non-Athenian forms; tragedy is generic imperialism. (On the other hand, H. also suggests that borrowing a genre from a friendly city may be a compliment.) The chapter is a self-conscious attempt to bring together formal and sociological analysis, but it does not, in the end, quite work, despite the predictable insights along the way. This is partly because it never addresses what tragic song actually does or what deμnes its special registers. Between the formal properties of tragedy and their social meaning lies an aesthetic and emotional territory. If song typically indicates an emotional level that makes Athenian males uneasy, it also seems to invite a level of audience engagement that only the upper class are allowed to demand. Although H. has historically contextualised her own earlier work, and has considered Persian luxury goods as objects of Athenian longing, she does not see any sympathy for barbarians in Aeschylus’ audience or in Timotheus. I learned a great deal from ‘Drowning Acts’, but found myself wondering whether Greeks, even excellent swimmers, could so completely have overcome the primal human fear of drowning as H. seems to assume. Particularly in her discussion of projection on pp. 208–9, she seems to assume the truth of psychoanalysis. Still, it is relatively easy to bracket her psychological explanations and to concentrate on the phenomena she has so sharply perceived and assembled.
BRILL eBooks, 2006
This chapter is concerned with what it means in the Greek tradition for someone to profess a deta... more This chapter is concerned with what it means in the Greek tradition for someone to profess a detailed knowledge of farming—not necessarily to be a farmer, but to speak the language of farming. Speech about farming might seem to be an obvious mark of rusticity, branding ...
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jun 1, 2023
American Journal of Philology, 1989
... a pronoun for dios Achilleus; further that "daimoni isos hardly differs from dios Achill... more ... a pronoun for dios Achilleus; further that "daimoni isos hardly differs from dios Achilleus in meaning" and that "the context does not require one or the other; daimoni isos and dios Achilleus are practically syn-onymous and equivalent formulae." Thus when Homer chooses one ...
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2018
This chapter surveys myth retellings for children in the first half of the twentieth century, mos... more This chapter surveys myth retellings for children in the first half of the twentieth century, mostly in anthologies but also in other fictional forms in which modern children interact with figures from classical myth. Key developments include the impact of anthropology and folklore studies, the emergence of the United States as a center of children’s publishing after World War I, questions about the relevance of myth to American children, the assimilation of myths to fables and tall tales, innovative approaches to illustration, and mid-century nostalgia for earlier myth books. Among the authors discussed are Andrew Lang, Padraic Colum, James Daugherty, Robert McCloskey, Edith Hamilton, Roger Lancelyn Green, and Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire.
The copyright law of the United States (title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photo... more The copyright law of the United States (title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specific conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.
The Journal of Hellenic Studies
Document Type Other Date of this Version 2010 Publication Source The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancie... more Document Type Other Date of this Version 2010 Publication Source The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome DOI 10.1093/acref/9780195170726.001.0001 Abstract Sophocles’ plays stand out for their portraits of isolation. They showcase characters cut off from others by their difficult personalities and by the circumstances of disease, disgrace, criminality, defiance of authority, exile, bereavement, and early death. Yet from what we can tell, these conditions were quite unlike Sophocles’ own experience. Though the ancient biographies of poets are late and often unreliable, our evidence supports the summary given by Sophocles’ biographer of an enviable life: “he was illustrious both in life and in poetry, he was well educated and raised in comfortable circumstances, and he DEPARTMENTAL PAPERS (CLASSICAL STUDIES) SEARCH Enter search terms: Search
In his relation to rhetoric, as in many features of his work, Herodotus is in the paradoxical pos... more In his relation to rhetoric, as in many features of his work, Herodotus is in the paradoxical position of seeming to have invented history and yet not to have actually written it, to have indicated the rules of what we con sider to be historical method and yet not to have followed them.' Where the use of formal speeches is concerned, Herodotus' apparent failure to take advantage of his own invention is highlighted by the centrality of speeches in Thucydides' history and by Thucydides' notable success in integrating the public deliberations of historical agents into his narrative. Thus, Charles Fornara begins an account of "The Spfeech in Greek and Roman Historiography," in his general book on The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome, by declaring that "Although it was Herodotus who introduced the direct oration into history, our proper point of de parture is the well-considered decision of Thucydides to continue with its use."^ Scholars have certainly seen that Herodotus was well aware of and responsive to the revolutionary developments in rhetoric of his time and place. In The Art of Persuasion in Greece, George Kennedy describes Herodotus as fully displaying what Kennedy, with his characteristic ana lytic clarity, labels the four signs of rhetorical consciousness: awareness of the formal structure of speeches, interest in etymology and word-play, use of antithesis and other sophistic stylistic features, and subtlety of argu-' As François Hartog puts it, "In the last analysis, his position may be summed up in the following paradox: even though he is the father of history, he is not really a historian ;
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Papers by Sheila Murnaghan