Barbara Graziosi

Last updated

Barbara Graziosi
Born
Trieste, Italy
Alma mater University of Oxford
University of Cambridge
OccupationAcademic
Employer Durham University

Barbara Graziosi is an Italian classicist and academic. She is Professor of Classics at Princeton University. Her interests lie in ancient Greek literature, and the way in which readers make it their own. [1] She has written extensively on the subject of Homeric literature, in particular the Iliad, and more generally on the transition of the Twelve Olympians from antiquity to the Renaissance. Her most recent research was a project entitled 'Living Poets: A New Approach to Ancient Poetry, which was funded by the European Research Council. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Barbara was born in Trieste, Italy, and lived there until she was 17. She attended a local liceo classico, and then the United World College of the Adriatic. Having been granted a local government scholarship, she studied Literae Humaniores at Corpus Christi College, Oxford in England. She graduated from the University of Oxford with a first class Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1995. She remained at Oxford and completed a Master of Studies (MSt) degree in 1996. [3]

Having been granted a graduate scholarship, Graziosi moved to the University of Cambridge to undertake postgraduate research at Magdalene College, Cambridge. [3] She completed her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1999. [3] Her doctoral supervisor was P. E. Easterling, [3] and her thesis was titled "Inventing the poet: a study of the early reception of the Homeric poems". [4]

Career

After a brief spell back in Oxford, as a Cox Junior Research Fellow at New College, and then in Reading, as a Lecturer in Greek Literature, she settled in Durham in 2001, first as a Lecturer, and then as a Senior Lecturer in Classics. She is also a doctorate supervisor for the university.

In 2003, she was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship. Also in 2003, she was a Summer Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, D.C. (under the umbrella of Harvard University). [3]

In 2018 she joined the classics faculty at Princeton University.

She has also been consulted on her work on a number of popular radio stations and television shows, including: discussing the Iliad with poets Carol Ann Duffy and Ruth Padel (BBC Radio 3, Proms Interval Talks), assessing the discovery of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri together with a team of classicists, scientists and journalists (on BBC Channel 4 and Channel 2); arguing about the location of Ithaca with Quentin Cooper and John Underhill (Material World, BBC Radio 4), discussing her work with Bill Buschel on US Public Radio, and talking about Homer and Sappho on BBC Radio 3 (The Essay: Greek and Latin Voices). [1]

Publications

Author

Chapter in book

Edited book

Journal articles

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homer</span> Reputed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey

Homer is the legendary author to whom the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey is attributed. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time. In Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Virgil refers to him as "Poet sovereign", king of all poets; in the preface to his translation of the Iliad, Alexander Pope acknowledges that Homer has always been considered the "greatest of poets".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hesiod</span> Ancient Greek poet of the archaic period

Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded as the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as an individual persona with an active role to play in his subject. Ancient authors credited Hesiod and Homer with establishing Greek religious customs. Modern scholars refer to him as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought, archaic Greek astronomy and ancient time-keeping.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nereids</span> Sea nymph in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, the Nereids or Nereides are sea nymphs, the 50 daughters of the 'Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris, sisters to their brother Nerites. They often accompany Poseidon, the god of the sea, and can be friendly and helpful to sailors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Titans</span> Order of divine beings in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, the Titans were the pre-Olympian gods. According to the Theogony of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), with six male Titans—Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Cronus—and six female Titans, called the Titanides or "Titanesses" —Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys. Cronus mated with his older sister Rhea, who then bore the first generation of Olympians: the six siblings Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera. Certain descendants of the Titans, such as Prometheus, Helios, and Leto, are sometimes also called Titans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Themis</span> Greek goddess of divine law

In Greek mythology and religion, Themis is one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia and Uranus, and the second wife of Zeus. She is the goddess and personification of justice, divine order, fairness, law, and custom, and her symbols include the Scales of Justice. She is also associated with oracles and prophecies, including the Oracle of Delphi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tethys (mythology)</span> Ancient Greek mythological figure

In Greek mythology, Tethys was a Titan daughter of Uranus and Gaia, a sister and wife of the Titan Oceanus, and the mother of the river gods and the Oceanids. Although Tethys had no active role in Greek mythology and no established cults, she was depicted in mosaics decorating baths, pools, and triclinia in the Greek East, particularly in Antioch and its suburbs, either alone or with Oceanus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epic Cycle</span> History of the Trojan War told in poems

The Epic Cycle was a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems, composed in dactylic hexameter and related to the story of the Trojan War, including the Cypria, the Aethiopis, the so-called Little Iliad, the Iliupersis, the Nostoi, and the Telegony. Scholars sometimes include the two Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, among the poems of the Epic Cycle, but the term is more often used to specify the non-Homeric poems as distinct from the Homeric ones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Greek literature</span> Literature written in Ancient Greek language

Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, set in an idealized archaic past today identified as having some relation to the Mycenaean era. These two epics, along with the Homeric Hymns and the two poems of Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, constituted the major foundations of the Greek literary tradition that would continue into the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.

In Greek mythology, Dynamene was a Nereid or sea-nymph, one of the 50 daughters of the "Old Man of the Sea" Nereus and the Oceanid Doris. Her name, a participle, means "she who can, the capable one." She, along with her sister Pherusa, was associated with the might and power of great ocean swells. Dynamene had the ability to appear and disappear rapidly. Some variations of her name were Dyomene and Dinamene

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhapsode</span> Refers to a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry

A rhapsode or, in modern usage, rhapsodist, refers to a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Rhapsodes notably performed the epics of Homer but also the wisdom and catalogue poetry of Hesiod and the satires of Archilochus and others. Plato's dialogue Ion, in which Socrates confronts a star player rhapsode, remains the most coherent source of information on these artists. Often, rhapsodes are depicted in Greek art, wearing their signature cloak and carrying a staff. This equipment is also characteristic of travellers in general, implying that rhapsodes were itinerant performers, moving from town to town. Rhapsodes originated in Ionia, which has been sometimes regarded as Homer's birthplace, and were also known as Homeridai, disciples of Homer, or "singers of stitched lays."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stesichorus</span> Ancient Greek lyric poet

Stesichorus was a Greek lyric poet native of today's Calabria. He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres, and for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris, and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing verses first insulting and then flattering to Helen of Troy.

Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Homeric Hymns. It is a literary dialect of Ancient Greek consisting mainly of Ionic, with some Aeolic forms, a few from Arcadocypriot, and a written form influenced by Attic. It was later named Epic Greek because it was used as the language of epic poetry, typically in dactylic hexameter, by poets such as Hesiod and Theognis of Megara. Compositions in Epic Greek may date from as late as the 5th century AD, and it only fell out of use by the end of classical antiquity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homeric Question</span> Doubts and debate about the identity of Homer and the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey

The Homeric Question concerns the doubts and consequent debate over the identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, and their historicity. The subject has its roots in classical antiquity and the scholarship of the Hellenistic period, but has flourished among Homeric scholars of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Litchfield West</span> British philologist and classical scholar (1937–2015)

Martin Litchfield West, was a British philologist and classical scholar. In recognition of his contribution to scholarship, he was awarded the Order of Merit in 2014.

<i>Aoidos</i>

The Greek word aoidos referred to a classical Greek singer. In modern Homeric scholarship aoidos is used by some as the technical term for a skilled oral epic poet in the tradition to which the Iliad and Odyssey are believed to belong.

Patricia Elizabeth Easterling, FBA is an English classical scholar, recognised as a particular expert on the work of Sophocles. She was Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge from 1994 to 2001. She was the 36th person and the first — and, so far, only — woman to hold the post.

The Contest of Homer and Hesiod is a Greek narrative that expands a remark made in Hesiod's Works and Days to construct an imagined poetical agon between Homer and Hesiod. In Works and Days, Hesiod claims he won a poetry contest, receiving as the prize a tripod, which he dedicated to the Muses of Mount Helicon. A tripod, believed to be Hesiod's dedication-offering, was still being shown to tourists visiting Mount Helicon and its sacred grove of the Muses in Pausanias' day, but has since vanished.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uranus (mythology)</span> Primordial Greek deity, god of the sky

In Greek mythology, Uranus, sometimes written Ouranos, is the personification of the sky and one of the Greek primordial deities. According to Hesiod, Uranus was the son and husband of Gaia (Earth), with whom he fathered the first generation of Titans. However, no cult addressed directly to Uranus survived into Classical times, and Uranus does not appear among the usual themes of Greek painted pottery. Elemental Earth, Sky, and Styx might be joined, however, in solemn invocation in Homeric epic. Uranus is associated with the Roman god Caelus.

Classical reception studies is the study of how the classical world, especially Ancient Greek literature and Latin literature, have been received since antiquity. It is the study of the portrayal and representation of the ancient world from ancient to modern times. The nature of reception studies is highly interdisciplinary, including literature, art, music, and film. The field of study has, within the past few decades, become an increasingly popular and legitimized topic of interest in Classical studies.

Philodoppides of Messenia was a lyric poet from Messenia, located in the southern Peloponnese in Greece. His poetry survives in fragmentary form, and few biographical details are known.

References

  1. 1 2 "Prof. B Graziosi". Durham University. Retrieved 26 July 2017.
  2. "Who We Are – Living Poets". Durham University. Retrieved 26 July 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Graziosi, Barbara. "Barbara Graziosi – Biography". Durham University. Archived from the original on 24 August 2017. Retrieved 27 July 2017.
  4. Graziosi, Barbara (1999). "Inventing the poet: a study of the early reception of the Homeric poems". E-Thesis Online Service. The British Library. Retrieved 7 March 2018.