Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Greek Novel - Robert Cioffi

Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Greek Novel

Between Representation and Resistance

(Autor)

Buch | Hardcover
304 Seiten
2024
Oxford University Press (Verlag)
978-0-19-287053-7 (ISBN)
109,95 inkl. MwSt
In this richly detailed study, Robert Cioffi explores the signficance of the Nile River Valley as the geographic centre of the ancient Greek novel during the genre's heyday in the Roman empire. He shows how the region is repeatedly portrayed in these fictions as a dual-site of ethnographic representation and of resistance to imperial power.
There is no region more central to the ancient Greek romance novel than the thousand or so miles stretching from Alexandria to ancient Ethiopia that comprise the Nile River Valley. Yet, for all its importance, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Greek Novel: Between Representation and Resistance is the first book-length study of how this region is depicted in a literary genre whose fictional tales of love, travel, separation, and reunion flourished during the Roman imperial period.

Employing approaches from Literary Studies, Classics, and Egyptology, Robert Cioffi explores the Nile River Valley in the ancient Greek romance novel through two fundamentally related concepts: representation and resistance. On the one hand, these novels develop an image of Egypt and Ethiopia that is in close dialogue with the Greco-Roman ethnographic tradition, characterized by extraordinary marvels such as grand cities, ancient religious rites, and a dizzying array of animals--some real, some imaginary, and some so incredible as to seem make-believe. On the other hand, this depiction often figures Egypt and Ethiopia as sites of resistance, revolt, and rebellion against--or political, cultural, and religious alternatives to--an array of dominant imperial powers in the region, from the Persians to the Romans.

This dual reading enriches our understanding of these texts' relationship with the real and imagined frontiers of Roman political, military, and intellectual power. It also raises a broader set of questions--some literary, some cultural-historical--about the interrelation of humans, their environment, and the topographies of cultural identity in the Roman empire.

Robert Cioffi is Assistant Professor of Classics at Bard College. His research centres on Greek literature, the history of the novel, Greek and Egyptian cultural interactions, and papyrology. He received a BA and PhD from Harvard University, and an MSt from the University of Oxford. In addition to his scholarly publications, he is a contributor to the London Review of Books and has written for the New York Times Book Review.

List of Figures
Note on titles, transliterations, and translations
Abbreviations
Maps
Introduction: In the Month of Hathor
1: Religion, Revolt, and Rome in Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, and Apuleius
2: Where the Wild Things Are: Achilles Tatius and Egyptian Animals
3: The Lives of Others: The Boukoloi, the Nile Delta, and the Frontiers of Knowledge in Achilles Tatius
4: Alexandria and Apocalypse: Representation, Resistance, and Time
5: An Ethiopian Story in Egypt
6: The Ends of Ethiopia in Heliodorus' An Ethiopian Story
Epilogue. Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Americas: The Greek Novels' Early Modern Readers
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum
Zusatzinfo 7 black and white illustrations and 2 maps
Verlagsort Oxford
Sprache englisch
Maße 160 x 240 mm
Gewicht 566 g
Themenwelt Geisteswissenschaften Archäologie
Geschichte Allgemeine Geschichte Vor- und Frühgeschichte
Geschichte Allgemeine Geschichte Altertum / Antike
Geisteswissenschaften Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft Anglistik / Amerikanistik
Geisteswissenschaften Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10 0-19-287053-X / 019287053X
ISBN-13 978-0-19-287053-7 / 9780192870537
Zustand Neuware
Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR)
Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt?
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
auf den Spuren der frühen Zivilisationen

von Harald Haarmann

Buch | Hardcover (2023)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
20,00
die letzten 43000 Jahre

von Karin Bojs

Buch | Hardcover (2024)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
26,00