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Contemporary poetry and classics Oliver Taplin

in Classics in Progress: Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome Published in print: 2006 Published Online: Publisher: British Academy January 2012 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197263235.003.0001 ISBN: 9780197263235 eISBN: 9780191734328 Item type: chapter

This chapter looks at the here and now and the unselfconscious use of Greek and Latin writers by contemporary British and Irish poets. In 1973 an enterprising garland-maker collected together some 850 translations from The Greek Anthology. Most of the versions by the fifty or so contributors were specially commissioned, and they included some excellent epigrams, some by poets already quite well known, including Fleur Adcock, Tony Harrison, Peter Levi, Edwin Morgan and Peter Porter. This discussion states that this volume marks a transition, from an age when a project like this had been primarily the preserve of scholars, and when classical poetry was predominantly the preserve of the few, to the present age when it has been opened up to a wide range of creative artists.

The Presence of the Reader: Allusion in Late Antiquity Aaron Pelttari

in The Space that Remains: Reading of Latin Poetry in Late Antiquity Published in print: 2014 Published Online: Publisher: Cornell University Press August 2016 DOI: 10.7591/cornell/9780801452765.003.0005 ISBN: 9780801452765 eISBN: 9780801455001 Item type: chapter

This chapter is devoted to intertextuality, focusing on a characteristically late antique form of allusion. These allusions approximate quotations, for they set a fragment—typically of classical poetry—off against its new context within the late antique poem. The chapter begins by discussing the ways in which allusion was employed by classical poets. It then treats allusions from late antiquity that are progressively more exposed to the presence of their reader. Because late antique allusions do not need to Page 1 of 6

be read as referential, the referentiality (or not) of allusion will serve as a pivot between classical and late antique poetics. Instead of asserting their control over the tradition, late antique poets present their work as a fragmented and open text: they juxtapose independent fragments of classical poetry, they set these units in apposition to their own words, and they avoid emulation. In so doing, they reveal themselves as readers and allow their audience to engage in the continuing play of interpretation.

The Origin of Sin: An English Translation of the "Hamartigenia" Aurelius Prudentius Clemens

Published in print: 2011 Published Online: Publisher: Cornell University Press August 2016 DOI: 10.7591/cornell/9780801442223.001.0001 ISBN: 9780801442223 eISBN: 9780801463051 Item type: book

Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348–c.406) is one of the great Christian Latin writers of late antiquity. He wrote poetry that was deeply influenced by classical writers and in the process he revived the ethical, historical, and political functions of poetry. This aspect of his work was especially valued in the Middle Ages by Christian writers who found themselves similarly drawn to the Classical tradition. Prudentius' Hamartigenia, consisting of a 63-line preface followed by 966 lines of dactylic hexameter verse, considers the origin of sin in the universe and its consequences, culminating with a vision of judgment day: the damned are condemned to torture, worms, and flames, while the saved return to a heaven filled with delights, one of which is the pleasure of watching the torments of the damned. This book, the first new English translation in more than forty years, shows that Hamartigenia is critical for understanding late antique ideas about sin, justice, gender, violence, and the afterlife. Its radical exploration of and experimentation with language have inspired generations of thinkers and poets since—most notably John Milton, whose Paradise Lost owes much of its conception of language and its strikingly visual imagery to Prudentius' poem.

Futures en Abyme: Poetry in Strange Loops Paola Iovene

in Tales of Futures Past: Anticipation and the Ends of Literature in Contemporary China Published in print: 2014 Published Online: Publisher: Stanford University Press January 2015 DOI: 10.11126/ ISBN: 9780804789370 eISBN: 9780804791601 stanford/9780804789370.003.0005 Item type: chapter

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The chapter examines the complex temporal structures in works from the 1980s to the early 1990s inspired by the late Tang poet Li Shangyin. It details the reception of Li Shangyin’s poetry and its influence, and then analyses its place in the works of contemporary novelists Wang Meng and Ge Fei. Ge Fei’s “Brocade Zither” (1993) is characterized by a recursive structure that recalls the figure of the “strange loop” discussed in Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979; Chinese translation, 1984). The chapter focuses on fictional depictions of scenes of reading and writing, arguing that their mode of anticipation reflects an anxiety of loss of cultural identity and of life itself. Ge Fei has been appreciated for his modernist preoccupation with the elusive nature of memory. However, his writing is equally concerned with the states of apprehension that shape how characters act.

Piecing Together the Fragments: Translating Classical Verse, Creating Contemporary Poetry Josephine Balmer

Published in print: 2013 Published Online: Publisher: Oxford University Press January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/ ISBN: 9780199585090 eISBN: 9780191747519 acprof:oso/9780199585090.001.0001 Item type: book

This book examines the art of classical translation from the perspective of the practitioner, arguing that translator statements such as prefaces and introductions, should be considered as much a part of creative writing as literary theory. From translating Sappho and other classical women poets, as well as Catullus and Ovid, to poetry collections inspired by classical literature, this book's author discusses her relationship with her source texts and uncovers the various strategies and approaches she has employed in their transformations into English. In particular, the book reveals how the need for radical translation strategies in any rendition of classical texts into English can inspire the poet/translator to new poetic forms and approaches. Above all, it considers how, through the masks or personae of ancient voices, such works offer writers a means of expressing dangerous or difficult subject matter they might not otherwise have been able to broach.

Imagining Harmony: Poetry, Empathy, and Community in MidTokugawa Confucianism and Nativism Peter Flueckiger

Published in print: 2010 Published Online: June Publisher: Stanford University Press 2013 DOI: 10.11126/ ISBN: 9780804761574 eISBN: 9780804776394 stanford/9780804761574.001.0001 Item type: book

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Many intellectuals in eighteenth-century Japan valued classical poetry in either Chinese or Japanese for its expression of unadulterated human sentiments. They also saw such poetry as a distillation of the language and aesthetic values of ancient China and Japan, which offered models of the good government and social harmony lacking in their time. By studying the poetry of the past and composing new poetry emulating its style, they believed it possible to reform their own society. This book focuses on the development of these ideas in the life and work of Ogyu Sorai, the most influential Confucian philosopher of the eighteenth century, and that of his key disciples and critics. This study contends that the literary thought of these figures needs to be understood not just for what it has to say about the composition of poetry, but as a form of political and philosophical discourse. Unlike other works on this literature, this book argues that the increased valorization of human emotions in eighteenth-century literary thought went hand in hand with new demands for how emotions were to be regulated and socialized, and that literary and political thought of the time were thus not at odds but inextricably linked.

Tsvi Shats

Benjamin Harshav in Language in Time of Revolution Published in print: 1993 Published Online: May Publisher: University of California Press 2012 DOI: 10.1525/ ISBN: 9780520079588 eISBN: 9780520912960 california/9780520079588.003.0035 Item type: chapter

The only language in which genuine classical poetry is created is the language of the working people. When folk poets such as Homer walked around reciting their poetry to the people, their language was the language of the people. However, in the course of generations, the language of the people became raw material also in the hands of those whose situation in society had changed and allowed them to live a more intuitive life. As an expression of their life, they created the second language for themselves: the language of literature. Thus, a certain distance was created between literature and the people; and the real life of the people, the life of the worker, remained without a poetic or expression of artistry. Thus the seed of jealousy and class hatred, that chronic social illness, was born. A cure for these ills can only come if the working people will also be the creating people.

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‘For Myne Owne Onely Exercyse’: Women Classical Translators Josephine Balmer

in Piecing Together the Fragments: Translating Classical Verse, Creating Contemporary Poetry Published in print: 2013 Published Online: Publisher: Oxford University Press January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/ ISBN: 9780199585090 eISBN: 9780191747519 acprof:oso/9780199585090.003.0003 Item type: chapter

This chapter begins with an overview of translations of classical poetry by women translators through the ages, examining, in particular, their prefaces and author statements, including those by Lucy Hutchinson, Anne Finch, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Anna Swanwick, and H.D., through to Mary Barnard, Diane Rayor, and Sarah Ruden. It concludes with Josephine Balmer’s own personal statement, exploring the paths that led her to classical poetry translation.

Kinetic Concrete Poetry Roberto Simanowski

in Digital Art and Meaning: Reading Kinetic Poetry, Text Machines, Mapping Art, and Interactive Installations Published in print: 2011 Published Online: Publisher: University of Minnesota Press August 2015 DOI: 10.5749/ ISBN: 9780816667376 eISBN: 9781452946788 minnesota/9780816667376.003.0003 Item type: chapter

This chapter describes the contemporary kinetic concrete poetry and its distinction from classical concrete poetry. It identifies the connection between software art, mannerism, postmodernism, Generation Flash, and the aesthetics of the spectacle. It also compares the culture of the depthless image in the digital age to the pure painting of the avant-garde art of the previous century.

The Art of Absence Josephine Balmer

in Piecing Together the Fragments: Translating Classical Verse, Creating Contemporary Poetry Published in print: 2013 Published Online: Publisher: Oxford University Press January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/ ISBN: 9780199585090 eISBN: 9780191747519 acprof:oso/9780199585090.003.0004 Item type: chapter

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This chapter presents an overview of the difficulties of translating fragmented classical poetry, in particular Greek lyric poetry, examining the main differences between classical and contemporary poetry translation. It discusses the mythology of Sappho and considers current perceptions of ancient culture.

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