The Cambridge Companion to Lucian
The Cambridge Companion to Lucian
Lucian is one of the most prolific and wide-ranging writers from antiquity and one of the most influential and controversial. His work is deeply embedded in the cultural and religious politics of the Greek world in the Roman Empire, but also played an important role in later periods, particularly during the Renaissance, and was considered a crucial example of the inherited wisdom of classical antiquity. Lucian's prose is limpid and elegant as well as sharply funny and full of great stories, dramatic dialogues, and brilliant satire. This Companion, written by world-leading scholars, introduces the major themes of his corpus and provides more detailed studies of individual works. Readers will be able to appreciate his major contributions to the history of satire, comic dialogues, religion, art, and erotics as well as being given a snapshot of the most important episodes in his work's reception in the West.
- Innovative introduction to one of the more influential and controversial writers of antiquity
- Explores major themes as well as providing detailed analysis of individual works
- Fully accessible to readers approaching Lucian through translation
Product details
November 2024Adobe eBook Reader
9781009186117
0 pages
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of contributors
- 1. Introduction Simon Goldhill
- Part I. 2. Lucian and the culture of criticism Richard Hunter
- 3. Lucian's poetics Emma Greensmith
- 4. Lucian and philosophy Peter van Nuffelen
- 5. On believing in Lucian: the religious polemics Tim Whitmarsh
- 6. Lucian and art history Jas Elsner
- 7. Some queer entanglements in Lucian's Erotes Alistair Blanshard
- Part II. 8. In praise of the fly Emily Kneebone
- 9. Lucian's Phalaris Peter Thonemann
- 10. Lucian the doorkeeper: inside and outside in Lucianic Poetics Marco Formisano
- 11. Geographical authority and bodily entanglements in Lucian's True Histories Jason König
- 12. Menippus goes to the moon: fantastical astronomy and Lucian's scientific imagination Karen ni Mhealligh
- 13. Lucian and Christianity Eleni Bozia
- 14. Identification and distance in Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans: subjects and their absences Dawn LaValle Norman
- 15. 'Here's Looking at You…': the dialogues of the gods and the erotics of the visual Simon Goldhill
- Part III. 16. Lucian of Samosata in renaissance Italy Irene Fantappié
- 17. Lucian goes north: the Luciani opuscula of Erasmus and Thomas More James Romm
- 18. From the eighteenth to the nineteenth century: Voltaire, Leopardi and a new avenue of philosophical critique Giacomo Loi
- Bibliography
- Index.
