Martin Hose and David Schenker
It is by no means an undemanding task, in the second decade of the third millennium, to make the corpus of texts known as “Ancient Greek Literature” available to interested readers in an introductory companion volume. The task is demanding not least because the texts constituting “Ancient Greek Literature”1 still form an integral part of the literary tradition of creative thought, and offer indispensible points of orientation, even in this age of globalization.
Over the past two centuries in the discipline of Classical Studies, works presenting themselves as literary histories (or as “introductions,” a more technical variety), and informed by the current state of research and issues brought to bear upon the text, have attempted to fulfill the task of introducing this body of Greek literature. The genre “history of literature” is, however, in a state of crisis (cf. Wellek 1973; Perkins 1991 and 1992). First, there is an extrinsic crisis: no single scholar can any longer master the entirety of Greek literature and its concomitant scholarship with sufficient depth and thoroughness to write a balanced and informative history. (Significantly, recent literary histories of great scope have been produced only as the collective work of multiple authors.) But far more serious than the extrinsic problem is a problem intrinsic to the form of literary history. As the term “history” indicates, literary history is subject to the demand of presenting a narrative, i.e. a coherent text with a beginning, middle, and end. At the genre’s height in the nineteenth century, such a narrative could be easily produced when one – intentionally or unintentionally – constructed literary history as part of the history of a people, or ethnic group, and, influenced by historico-philosophical models conceptualized by the German philosopher Hegel and building on those of Aristotle, one could show how a Volksgeist expressed itself in literature. This typically led to narratives that delineated a rise from humble beginnings to a point of consummation (or classicism) and sometimes also discerned a decline and fall. The more deeply literary historiography became aware of its Hegelian intellectual inheritance, the more difficult it became to develop the narrative necessary for a history.
A second problem also arose as the concept of the “death of the author,” evolved by Roland Barthes in 1968, began to take effect upon literary criticism. The author as a historical person was thereby radically negated as an entity and an essential object of literary history, and the author’s perspective on aesthetic production was delegitimized. The traditional format, especially that of Greek and Roman literary history, which placed the biography and “being” of the author in the narrative’s centre, became obsolete; the alternative concept developed with the “death of the author,” i.e. the “birth of the reader,” is impractical for Greco-Roman literature, since – in contrast to the literature of modern and contemporary eras (as Hans Robert Jauß conceptualized it in 1970) – the reception of a work by its readers can be ascertained only sporadically. Or, to quote the exquisite imagery of Friedrich Leo ( 1913 , 431): “From the colorful bird which has flown away, there remains in our hand but a feather.”
It would seem that the historiography of Greek as well as Roman literature has as yet been unable to recover conceptually from this double crisis.2 In this situation, the emergent form of the “Companion” offers a new opportunity which has not yet experienced, for better or worse, sustained theoretical reflection or resultant formal constraints. A Companion can, more adequately than the linear, narrative-bound literary history, approach Greek literature from diverse viewpoints with equal stringency and is thereby able to provide internal and external contextualization for this body of literature.
The present volume endeavors to make use of the possibilities offered by the Companion genre and to provide a point of entry into ancient Greek literature.
How does this volume define “Greek literature”? Upon closer consideration, the terms “Greek” and “literature” require clarification. “Greek” might refer to texts composed (a) by Greeks, (b) in the Greek language, or (c) by Greeks in the Greek language. Upon deeper examination option a (together with the closely connected possibility, c) proves to be extremely difficult to apply. A satisfactory definition of what a “Greek” was during the time span from c. 700 BCE to 600 CE appears to be an impossibility, partly because Greek culture itself first found concepts for self-definition in the fifth century BCE, partly because “Greekness” and “Hellenicity” appear as relative or strongly fluctuating categories in light of modern debates on “ethnicity” (cf. Hall 2002 and Dueck, ch. 25 in this volume). It is significant that, for example, Greek culture of the Imperial Period defined “Hellenicity” by the sharing of language and literature (cf. König, ch. 7 in this volume). The term “Greek” therefore lends itself to being understood in the sense of option b, i.e. as texts composed in the Greek language, but here with the recognition that “Greek” synchronically (in view of the diverse Greek dialects) as well as diachronically (in view of its historical linguistic developments, including its “fossilization” as Attic Greek) encompassed a broad spectrum of possibilities (cf. Willi, ch. 29 in this volume).
The term “literature” is no less in need of clarification. At first, the term appears to imply two lines of demarcation. To the extent that it relates to “literacy”, it seems to separate from “literature” all that one associates with the realm of orality and oral tradition. To draw such a sharp distinction makes no sense for early Greek literature, in which orality transitions to literacy but important features of orality remain preserved (cf. Reece, ch. 3, and Power, ch. 4 in this volume). Greek “literature” accordingly includes consideration of the “art of words,” i.e. works not limited by the conditions denoted by the term “literacy.”
Moreover, “literature” designates more than simply “text”; i.e. not everything set down in writing is literature per se. In the varieties of philology concerned with modern literature, this distinction has led to literary criticism concentrating above all on texts in the sense of belles lettres, and to the compilation of a culture’s entire written production (including, e.g., graffiti and so-called functional texts) being viewed as the task of cultural studies (cf. Bal 2002). Notwithstanding the focus on texts belonging to “high literature,” the dichotomy has never applied with the same strictness in Classical studies. For good reason: the strict separation of literary and technical texts in contemporary culture is inapplicable to Greco-Roman literature inasmuch as the technical texts of antiquity pose a literary challenge. It is, furthermore, impossible to overlook the fact that Greek literature generated, organized, and recorded knowledge in many and diverse forms (cf. Asper, ch. 26, and Dubischar, ch. 28, in this volume). Among these are technical texts, which must be incorporated into the category of “literature.”
Finally, the time frame chosen for this volume requires justification. Considering the purely administrative content of the linear texts of the late second millennium BCE, and the absence of literature in the period between the linear texts and early Greek epic, it may seem only natural that this Companion begins with early epic. The fact that it reaches as far as the sixth century CE, however – a time which may also be considered as “early Byzantine” – demands explanation. This extent is fully legitimate in respect to content: continuities of production and reception are unmistakable in various literary genres such as epic (cf. Cameron 2004) or historiography, in rhetoric (cf. Swain 2004) and in (Neoplatonic) philosophy (cf. Dillon 2004), and can be followed, in spite of the foundation of Constantinople as a new centre of the Greek-speaking world and the establishment of Christianity as imperial religion, well beyond the fourth century (cf. Stenger, ch. 8 in this volume). It is the manifest political and cultural changes of the Eastern Roman Empire during the seventh century which first lastingly transform literary production into a clearly contoured “Byzantine literature.” 3
Greek literature is a corpus of fascinating texts, in which thoughts and concepts of the highest aesthetic order find formulation, ideas which (as mentioned above) can expect to meet with interest even in the twenty-first century. If one presupposes that these texts arose in a context of tradition and challenge which – as shown by the considerable differences between texts of different dates – can be characterized by the term dynamic, then an introduction must be conceptualized in a way that makes the interaction between these factors clear and understandable. This Companion attempts such an approach.
Firstly, as a basis for all following chapters, the material dimension of Greek literature is presented in two stages (Part I, Production and Transmission): Lucio Del Corso illuminates the conditions of writing in Ancient Greece and the production of ancient texts and books (ch. 1), while Richard Armstrong provides an overview of the reception of Greek literature up to the present day (ch. 2).
External factors influencing literary production in the form of cultural or even concrete historical circumstances, challenges, or problems, each of which left behind their distinct signature, are then traced in six chapters (Part II, Greek Literature as a Dynamic System4): Steve Reece addresses the dynamic and productive transition from orality to literality (ch. 3), Timothy Power the specific constellations which shaped Archaic literature (ch. 4), James McGlew those of the fifth and fourth century (ch. 5), Anatole Mori the Hellenistic World (ch. 6), Jason König the first centuries of the Imperial Period (ch. 7), and Jan Stenger (ch. 8) the significance of Christianity for Greek literature.
After the wider context of Greek literature has been delineated, the corpus comprising Greek literature is then discussed following its division into “genres” (Part III, Genres). In an order approximately corresponding to that of the literary-historical testimony, Hanna Roisman examines epic (ch. 9), James Wells the poetic forms designated by the term “lyric” (ch. 10), Richard Rader drama (ch. 11), Regina Höschele the epigram and smaller poetic forms (ch. 12), followed by Mike Edwards on oratory (ch. 13), Antonis Tsakmakis on historiography and biography (ch. 14), Martin Hose on forms of philosophical literature (ch. 15), Stefan Tilg on the novel (ch. 16), and Thorsten Fögen on the forms of technical literature (ch. 17).
In a further step, the cast of players important for literature are described (Part IV, The Players). Mary Lefkowitz gives a sketch of the discourses surrounding the authors (ch. 18), René Nünlist considers the recipients (ch. 19), and David Schenker explores individuals who promote or hinder literature (ch. 20). Literature stands in close connection with inner and outer spaces (Part V, Places), which reach from imaginary spaces, handled by Suzanne Saïd (ch. 23), to spaces of production and performance, described by Manuel Baumbach (ch. 22), and actual cities as places of concentrated communication, discussed by Martin Hose (ch. 21).
Literature represents specific knowledge (Part VI, Literature and Knowledge). It is therefore fitting to enquire into the relation of literature and truth to one another (Martin Hose, ch. 24) and to ask how literature contributed to the production of particular forms of self-identity (Daniela Dueck, ch. 25). Literature can, of course, expressly and explicitly “instruct” and thereby convey knowledge (Markus Asper, ch. 26), but it can also do this indirectly (David Konstan, ch. 27). Finally, literature is a medium for bearing complex processes of cultural memory (and forgetting) and for developing a suitable arsenal of forms to this end (Markus Dubischar, ch. 28).
Greek literature had a high aesthetic appeal (Part VII, Literature and Aesthetics), which derives to a considerable degree from the Greek language’s possibilities of expression and variety of dialects, as traced by Andreas Willi (ch. 29). There also emerged in Greek literature (especially in poetry) particular methods of intensifying and enriching thoughts and expression, as Nick Baechle analyzes using select examples (ch. 30). Lastly, literature’s potential to affect its recipients in various ways is closely connected with the aesthetic dimension; this is discussed by Victoria Wohl (ch. 31).
The relevance which Greek literature continues to hold even in the twenty-first century is founded on the characteristics sketched in chapters 3–31, but it is also the result of a multifaceted reception (Part VIII, The Reception of Greek Literature), which Emily Wilson (ch. 32) and Edith Hall (ch. 33) elucidate with a look at the world of academia and beyond, respectively.
The editors hope that this concept is well suited to a book intended to lend interested readers orientation on their path through Greek literature as a whole, as well as through the individual works. They are well aware that other possibilities for conceptualizing such a book also exist, especially those that work with the vast connective potential of literature, and generate chapters such as “Greek Literature and Religion,”5 “… and Gender,” “… and Politics,” “… and Philosophy,” and so forth. They have chosen, however, not to develop this in a separate (and, by necessity, large) section on “intersections” since this would have meant a loss of space for the 33 chapters comprising the Companion and at the same time caused additional overlapping – religion and ritual are already handled, for example, in chapters 4, 5, 8, 10, and 11; myth in chapters 4, 9, 10, 11, and 24; gender in chapter 25; politics in chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, and 13; etc. The editors believe that the route they have chosen, namely that of examining Greek literature through a focus on its literary nature, is justified and will prove its worth.
The editors owe many thanks to Allison Kostka (Wiley-Blackwell) for providing the initiative for this book, her support, her advice and for her unwavering accompaniment of this project; the authors of the chapters, who never lost patience with the editors during the long process of completion, and always met new requests and suggestions with friendliness; and to the assistants to Chair of Greek Philology at the LMU in Munich, Dr Annamaria Peri, Janina Sieber, Markus Hafner, and Julian Schreyer, for their help with the final editing.