Epic and History (eBook)

David Konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University. He is the author of Friendship in the Classical World (1997), Pity Transformed (2001), The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks (2006), A Life Worthy of the Gods: The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus (2008), and Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea (2010). Kurt A. Raaflaub is the David Herlihy University Professor and Professor of Classics and History Emeritus at Brown University. His previous works include War and Peace in the Ancient World (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece (with J. Ober and R. W. Wallace, 2007), Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies (with R. J. A. Talbert, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), The Roman Empire in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (with J. Arnason, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), and The Greek Polis and the Invention of Democracy: A Politico-cultural Transformation and Its Interpretations (with J. Arnason and P. Wagner, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).

List of Figures and Tables vii

Notes on Contributors viii

Series Editor's Preface xiv

1 Introduction 1

David Konstan and Kurt A. Raaflaub

2 Maybe Epic: The Origins and Reception of Sumerian Heroic
Poetry 7

Piotr Michalowski

3 Historical Events and the Process of Their Transformation in
Akkadian Heroic Traditions 26

Joan Goodnick Westenholz

4 Epic and History in Hittite Anatolia: In Search of a Local
Hero 51

Amir Gilan

5 Manly Deeds: Hittite Admonitory History and Eastern
Mediterranean Didactic Epic 66

Mary R. Bachvarova

6 Epic and History in the Hebrew Bible: Definitions,
"Ethnic Genres," and the Challenges of Cultural
Identity

in the Biblical Book of Judges 86

Susan Niditch

7 No Contest between Memory and Invention: The Invention of the
Pa08ava Heroes of the MahAbhArata 103

James L. Fitzgerald

8 From "Imperishable Glory" to History: The Iliad
and the Trojan War 122

Jonas Grethlein

9 Historical Narrative in Archaic and Early Classical Greek
Elegy 145

Ewen Bowie

10 Fact, Fiction, and Form in Early Roman Epic 167

Sander M. Goldberg

11 The Song and the Sword: Silius's Punica and the Crisis
of Early Imperial Epic 185

Raymond D. Marks

12 The Burden of Mortality: Alexander and the Dead in Persian
Epic and Beyond 212

Olga M. Davidson

13 Slavic Epic: Past Tales and Present Myths 223

Susana Torres Prieto

14 Historicity and Anachronism in Beowulf 243

Geoffrey Russom

15 The Nibelungenlied - Myth and History: A Middle High
German Epic Poem at the Crossroads of Past and Present, Despair and
Hope 262

Albrecht Classen

16 Medieval Epic and History in the Romance Literatures
280

Joseph J. Duggan

17 Roland's Migration from Anglo-Norman Epic to Royal
French Chronicle History 293

Michel-André Bossy

18 A Recurrent Theme of the Spanish Medieval Epic: Complaints
and Laments by Noble Women 310

Mercedes Vaquero

19 History in Medieval Scandinavian Heroic Literature and the
Northwest European Context 328

Robert D. Fulk

20 Traditional History in South Slavic Oral Epic 347

John Miles Foley

21 Lord Five Thunder and the 12 Eagles and Jaguars of Rabinal
Meet Charlemagne and the 12 Knights of France 362

Dennis Tedlock

22 History, Myth, and Social Function in Southern African Nguni
Praise Poetry 381

Richard Whitaker

23 Epic and History in the Arabic Tradition 392

Dwight F. Reynolds

24 Comments on "Epic and History" 411

Dean Miller

Index 425

"I would recommend this volume both for scholars of epic and heroic literature (especially if they have interests in comparative literature or in questions of orality and historicity), who will no doubt enjoy its generally succinct essays with pertinent bibliography for each tradition." (Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 9 February 2011)

"Essential. Graduate students and researchers." (Choice, October 2010)

"A remarkably wide-ranging collection, deeply learned,
ecumenical in spirit, and diverse in its approaches."

Martin Mueller, Northwestern University

"This book is an 'epic' undertaking in its own
right, extending across four millennia in time, and most of the
globe in setting. The challenging mosaic of studies takes
shape as an exploratory chart of how memory, story-telling and the
desire for heroes may relate to what we might want to call
'History.'"

Oliver Taplin, Magdalen College, Oxford University

"Answers come and go. Questions persist. One of the many
virtues of this volume of collected essays is its ability to
re-open some fundamental discussions about epic, history, genre,
and memory. It does so in a sophisticated, learned, and wide
ranging manner. This book problematizes the relationships between
literary form, fact, and tradition in a way that will inform and
excite scholars in many fields for many years."

Ahuvia Kahane, Royal Holloway, University of London