Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose - Couverture souple

Kurke, Leslie

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0691144583 ISBN 13 : 9780691144580

Editeur : Princeton University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Examining the figure of Aesop and the traditions surrounding him, Aesopic Conversations offers a portrait of what Greek popular culture might have looked like in the ancient world. What has survived from the literary record of antiquity is almost entirely the product of an elite of birth, wealth, and education, limiting our access to a fuller range of voices from the ancient past. This book, however, explores the anonymous Life of Aesop and offers a different set of perspectives. Leslie Kurke argues that the traditions surrounding this strange text, when read with and against the works of Greek high culture, allow us to reconstruct an ongoing conversation of great and little traditions spanning centuries.

Evidence going back to the fifth century BCE suggests that Aesop participated in the practices of nonphilosophical wisdom (sophia) while challenging it from below, and Kurke traces Aesop's double relation to this wisdom tradition. She also looks at the hidden influence of Aesop in early Greek mimetic or narrative prose writings, focusing particularly on the Socratic dialogues of Plato and the Histories of Herodotus. Challenging conventional accounts of the invention of Greek prose and recognizing the problematic sociopolitics of humble prose fable, Kurke provides a new approach to the beginnings of prose narrative and what would ultimately become the novel.

Delving into Aesop, his adventures, and his crafting of fables, Aesopic Conversations shows how this low, noncanonical figure was--unexpectedly--central to the construction of ancient Greek literature.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Leslie Kurke is professor of classics and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Her books include Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold (Princeton).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Princeton University Press
• Date d'édition: 2010
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0691144583
• ISBN 13: 9780691144580
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 504
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible