Aesopic Conversations

Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose
Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-691-14458-0
Verlag: Princeton University Press

Buch, Englisch, 504 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 232 mm, Gewicht: 727 g

Reihe: Martin Classical Lectures

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kurke, Leslie

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Griechische & Byzantinische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Abbreviations xvii

INTRODUCTION

I. An Elusive Quarry: In Search of Ancient Greek Popular Culture 2

II. Explaining the Joke: A Road Map for Classicists 16

III. Synopsis of Method and Structure of Argument 46

PART I: Competitive Wisdom and Popular Culture 51

CHAPTER 1: Aesop and the Contestation of Delphic Authority 53

I. Ideological Tensions at Delphi 54

II. Th e Aesopic Critique 59

III. Neoptolemus and Aesop: Sacrifi ce, Hero Cult, and Competitive Scapegoating 75

CHAPTER 2: Sophia before/beyond Philosophy 95

I. Th e Tradition of Sophia 95

II. Sophists and (as) Sages 102

III. Aristotle and the Transformation of Sophia 115

CHAPTER 3: Aesop as Sage: Political Counsel and Discursive Practice 125

I. Aesop among the Sages 125

II. Political Animals: Fable and the Scene of Advising 142

CHAPTER 4: Reading the Life: Th e Progress of a Sage and the Anthropology of Sophia 159

I. An Aesopic Anthropology of Wisdom 160

II. Aesop and Ahiqar 176

III. Delphic Th e?ria and the Death of a Sage 185

IV. Th e Bricoleur as Culture Hero, or the Art of Extorting Self-Incrimination 191

CHAPTER 5: Th e Aesopic Parody of High Wisdom 202

I. Demystifying Sophia: Hesiod, Th eognis, and the Seven Sages 204

II. Aesopic Parody in the Visual Tradition? 224

PART II: Aesop and the Invention of Greek Prose 239

CHAPTER 6: Aesop at the Invention of Philosophy 241

Prelude to Part II: Th e Problematic Sociopolitics of Mimetic Prose 241

I. Mim?sis and the Invention of Philosophy 244

II. Th e Generic Affi liations of S?kratikoi logoi 251

CHAPTER 7: Th e Battle over Prose: Fable in Sophistic Education and Xenophon's

Memorabilia 265

I. Sophistic Fables 268

II. Traditional Fable Narration in Xenophon's Memorabilia 288

CHAPTER 8: Sophistic Fable in Plato: Parody, Appropriation, and Transcendence 301

I. Plato's Protagoras: Debunking Sophistic Fable 301

II. Plato's Symposium: Ringing the Changes on Fable 308

CHAPTER 9: Aesop in Plato's S?kratikoi Logoi: Analogy, Elenchos, and Disavowal 325

I. Sophia into Philosophy: Socrates between the Sages and Aesop 326

II. Th e Aesopic Bricoleur and the "Old Socratic Tool-Box" 330

III. Sympotic Wisdom, Comedy, and Aesopic Competition in Hippias Major 344

CHAPTER 10: Histori? and Logopoi?a: Two Sides of Herodotean Prose 361

I. History before Prose, Prose before History 362

II. Aesop Ho Logopoios 370

III. Plutarch Reading Herodotus: Aesop, Ruptures of Decorum, and the Non-Greek 382

CHAPTER 11: Herodotus and Aesop: Some Soundings 398

I. Cyrus Tells a Fable 400

II. Greece and (as) Fable, or Resignifying the Hierarchy of Genre 404

III. Fable as History 412

IV. Th e Aesopic Contract of the Histories: Herodotus Teaches His Readers 426

Bibliography 433

Index Locorum 463

General Index 478

Über Autor(innen)

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