Richard Janko

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Richard Janko
Born (1955-05-30) May 30, 1955 (age 69)
Education Bedford Modern School
Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge
Scientific career
Institutions Columbia University
University of California, Los Angeles
University College London
University of Michigan
Thesis Studies in the language of the Homeric Hymns and the dating of early Greek epic poetry  (1980)
Doctoral advisor John Chadwick
Doctoral students Armand D'Angour
Website www-personal.umich.edu/~rjanko/janko.html

Richard Charles Murray Janko (born May 30, 1955) is an Anglo-American classical scholar and the Gerald F. Else Distinguished University Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan. [1]

Contents

Family and education

Janko was born on May 30, 1955, the descendant of an Austro-Hungarian revolutionary who left Vienna in 1848 to find refuge in London.

Janko was educated at Bedford Modern School [2] and won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge. With the encouragement of his parents, an electrician and a shopkeeper, he learned Greek from Andrew M. Wilson, who translated Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

As a student he took part in the British excavations at Agios Stephanos in Laconia, directed by Lord William Taylour, and wrote a doctoral dissertation under John Chadwick. He was elected a Research Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Scholarship

Janko's scholarship has focused primarily upon Bronze Age Greece, archaic Greek epic, especially the Iliad of Homer, ancient literary criticism, especially the Poetics of Aristotle, early Greek religion and philosophy (especially Empedocles, Orphism, and the Derveni papyrus), and the reconstruction of ancient books on papyrus-rolls. His study of epic diction, Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns, established by a statistical study of language the relative chronology of the corpus of early Greek epic poetry.

Janko published a controversial book Aristotle on Comedy, arguing that a summary of the lost second book of Aristotle's Poetics on comedy and humour survives in a tenth-century manuscript in Paris, the Tractatus coislinianus . This was shortly followed by an annotated translation of Aristotle's Poetics itself. He wrote the volume on Homer's Iliad 13-16 in the set of commentaries on Homer's Iliad edited by Geoffrey Kirk; in this he argues that Homer was a consummate artist of oral poetry. [3]

Janko was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1986. In 1993 he delivered the Martin Classical Lectures on ancient literary criticism at Oberlin College. [4] His edition and translation of Philodemus' On Poems Book 1, [5] reconstructed from a series of Herculaneum papyri, was awarded the Goodwin Award of Merit by the American Philological Association in 2001. [6]

In 2008 he brought out the site-report of the excavations at the Bronze Age and Medieval settlement of Ayios Stephanos in Laconia; these excavations do much to clarify relations between Minoan Crete and the Mycenaean mainland. In 2011 he published Philodemus' On Poems Books 3 and 4, which contains fragments of Aristotle's lost dialog On Poets.

University positions

Janko is currently the Gerald F. Else Distinguished University Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan. [1] In this role, Janko instructs a range of courses, which include courses looking at Homer and the Trojan War [7] and the playwright, Euripides [8] as of 2024.

He has previously held positions at St. Andrews University, Columbia University, UCLA and University College London, where he was Professor of Greek. He has held Visiting Professorships at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006, and to the American Philosophical Society in 2009.

Publications

Monographs, commentaries and critical editions

Articles (selected)

Related Research Articles

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

Homer was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nyx</span> Ancient Greek goddess of the night

In Greek mythology, Nyx is the goddess and personification of the night. In Hesiod's Theogony, she is the offspring of Chaos, and the mother of Aether and Hemera (Day) by Erebus (Darkness). By herself, she produces a brood of children which are personifications of primarily negative forces. She features in a number of early cosmogonies, which place her as one of the first deities to exist. In the works of poets and playwrights, she lives at the ends of the Earth, and is often described as a black-robed goddess who drives through the sky in a chariot pulled by horses. In the Iliad, Homer relates that even Zeus fears to displease her.

Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest surviving work of Greek dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory. In this text Aristotle offers an account of ποιητική, which refers to poetry and more literally "the poetic art," deriving from the term for "poet; author; maker," ποιητής. Aristotle divides the art of poetry into verse drama, lyric poetry, and epic. The genres all share the function of mimesis, or imitation of life, but differ in three ways that Aristotle describes:

  1. Differences in music rhythm, harmony, meter, and melody.
  2. Difference of goodness in the characters.
  3. Difference in how the narrative is presented: telling a story or acting it out.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orphism (religion)</span> Set of ancient Greek and Hellenistic religious beliefs

Orphism is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices originating in Thrace and later spreading to the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world, associated with literature ascribed to the mythical Thracian poet Orpheus, who descended into the Greek underworld and returned. This type of journey is called a katabasis and is the basis of several hero worships and journeys. Orphics revered Dionysus and Persephone. Orphism has been described as a reform of the earlier Dionysian religion, involving a re-interpretation or re-reading of the myth of Dionysus and a re-ordering of Hesiod's Theogony, based in part on pre-Socratic philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aether (mythology)</span> Personification of the upper sky in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, Aether, Æther, Aither, or Ether is the personification of the bright upper sky. According to Hesiod, he was the son of Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), and the brother of Hemera (Day). In Orphic cosmogony Aether was the offspring of Chronos (Time), and the brother of Chaos and Erebus.

<i>Catalogue of Women</i> Ancient Greek epic poem

The Catalogue of Women —also known as the Ehoiai —is a fragmentary Greek epic poem that was attributed to Hesiod during antiquity. The "women" of the title were in fact heroines, many of whom lay with gods, bearing the heroes of Greek mythology to both divine and mortal paramours. In contrast with the focus upon narrative in the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, the Catalogue was structured around a vast system of genealogies stemming from these unions and, in M. L. West's appraisal, covered "the whole of the heroic age." Through the course of the poem's five books, these family trees were embellished with stories involving many of their members, and so the poem amounted to a compendium of heroic mythology in much the same way that the Hesiodic Theogony presents a systematic account of the Greek pantheon built upon divine genealogies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stesichorus</span> 6th-century BC 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stichometry</span> Practice of counting lines in texts

Stichometry is the practice of counting lines in texts: Ancient Greeks and Romans measured the length of their books in lines, just as modern books are measured in pages. This practice was rediscovered by German and French scholars in the 19th century. Stichos is the Greek word for a 'line' of prose or poetry and the suffix '-metry' is derived from the Greek word for measurement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erinna</span> Ancient Greek female poet

Erinna was an ancient Greek poet. She is best known for her long poem The Distaff, a 300-line hexameter lament for her childhood friend Baucis, who had died shortly after her marriage. A large fragment of this poem was discovered in 1928 at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Along with The Distaff, three epigrams ascribed to Erinna are known, preserved in the Greek Anthology. Biographical details about Erinna's life are uncertain. She is generally thought to have lived in the first half of the fourth century BC, though some ancient traditions have her as a contemporary of Sappho; Telos is generally considered to be her most likely birthplace, but Tenos, Teos, Rhodes, and Lesbos are all also mentioned by ancient sources as her home.

Philodemus of Gadara was an Epicurean philosopher and poet. He studied under Zeno of Sidon in Athens, before moving to Rome, and then to Herculaneum. He was once known chiefly for his poetry preserved in the Greek Anthology, but since the 18th century, many writings of his have been discovered among the charred papyrus rolls at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. The task of excavating and deciphering these rolls is difficult, and work continues to this day. The works of Philodemus so far discovered include writings on ethics, theology, rhetoric, music, poetry, and the history of various philosophical schools. Ethel Ross Barker suggested in 1908 that he was owner of the Villa of the Papyri Library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homeric scholarship</span> Study of any Homeric topic, especially the Iliad and Odyssey

Homeric scholarship is the study of any Homeric topic, especially the two large surviving epics, the Iliad and Odyssey. It is currently part of the academic discipline of classical studies. The subject is one of the oldest in education.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derveni papyrus</span> Oldest surviving European manuscript (c. 340 BC)

The Derveni papyrus is an ancient Greek papyrus roll that was found in 1962. It is a philosophical treatise that is an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem, a theogony concerning the birth of the gods, produced in the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras. The roll dates to around 340 BC, during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, making it Europe's oldest surviving manuscript. The poem itself was composed near the end of the 5th century BC, and "in the fields of Greek religion, the sophistic movement, early philosophy, and the origins of literary criticism it is unquestionably the most important textual discovery of the 20th century." While interim editions and translations were published over the subsequent years, the manuscript as a whole was finally published in 2006.

<i>Shield of Heracles</i> Archaic Greek epic poem

The Shield of Heracles is an archaic Greek epic poem that was attributed to Hesiod during antiquity. The subject of the poem is the expedition of Heracles and Iolaus against Cycnus, the son of Ares, who challenged Heracles to combat as Heracles was passing through Thessaly. It is generally dated from the end of the 7th to the middle of the 6th century BCE.

In ancient Greece the chief magistrate in various Greek city states was called eponymous archon. "Archon" means "ruler" or "lord", frequently used as the title of a specific public office, while "eponymous" means that he gave his name to the year in which he held office, much like the Roman dating by consular years.

Mnesarchus or Mnesarch, of Athens, was a Stoic philosopher, who lived c. 160 – c. 85 BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Totenpass</span> "passport of the dead" in some ancient Greco-Roman religions

Totenpass is a German term sometimes used for inscribed tablets or metal leaves found in burials primarily of those presumed to be initiates into Orphic, Dionysiac, and some ancient Egyptian and Semitic religions. The term may be understood in English as a "passport for the dead". The so-called Orphic gold tablets are perhaps the best-known example.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cephalus (son of Deione/Deioneus)</span>

In Greek mythology, Cephalus is a Aeolian prince, the son of Deion/Deioneos, ruler of Phocis, and Diomede, and grandson of Aeolus. He was one of the lovers of the dawn goddess Eos.

Lucia Prauscello is a Classicist who works on Greek Philology and Literature. She is a professor at the University of Oxford.

PHerc. Paris. 4 is a carbonized scroll of papyrus, dating to the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. Part of a corpus known as the Herculaneum papyri, it was buried by hot-ash in the Roman city of Herculaneum during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It was subsequently discovered in excavations of the Villa of the Papyri from 1752–1754. Held by the Institut de France in its rolled state, it is now known to be a cornerstone example of non-invasive reading, where in February 2024, an announcement was made that the scroll's contents can be unveiled with the use of non-invasive imaging and machine learning artificial intelligence, paving the way towards the decipherment and scanning of other Herculaneum papyri and otherwise heavily damaged texts.

References

  1. 1 2 University of Michigan, Department of Classical Studies faculty directory.
  2. "School of the Black and Red, A History of Bedford Modern School" by Andrew Underwood (1981), reset and updated by Peter Boon, Paul Middleton and Richard Wildman, 2010
  3. Janko, Richard, ed. (6 October 1991). The Iliad: A Commentary: Volume 4: Books 13-16. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511620249. ISBN   9780521237123.
  4. "Richard Janko | University of Michigan - Academia.edu". umich.academia.edu.
  5. Philodemus: On Poems, Book I. Oxford University Press. 6 October 2003. ISBN   978-0-19-926285-4 via Google Books.
  6. "List of Previous Goodwin Award Winners | Society for Classical Studies". classicalstudies.org.
  7. "CLCIV 470 - Upper Level Topics in Antiquity". LSA Course Guide. University of Michigan. Retrieved 15 January 2024.
  8. "GREEK 402 - Greek Drama". LSA Course Guide. University of Michigan. Retrieved 15 January 2024.
Academic offices
Preceded by Professor of Greek, University College, London
1995 - 2002
Succeeded by