Overview

Two allegorical ancient Greek stories about a young hero’s career- defining choice are shown in this book to have later been appropriated to radically differing effects. E.g. a male’s choice between female personifications can morph into a female’s choice between the same, or between various male personifications. Never before have so many instances of this process from art, literature, music, even landscape gardening, been culled. Illustrations, mainly colour, many brought into this context for the first time, are conveniently incorporated into the text, thus mimetically mirroring a central theme of the book, the process of ‘visualising the verbal, verbalising the visual.’

Full Product Details

Author:   Malcolm Davies
Publisher:   Brill
Imprint:   Brill
Volume:   24
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 2.40cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.610kg
ISBN:  

9789004678941

ISBN 10:   9004678948
Pages:   292
Publication Date:   06 September 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface List of Illustrations Editions and Translations, Restricted to Heracles at the Crossroads Part 1: Heracles at the Crossroads A Note on Nomenclature 1 Visual Art  Introduction  Appendix: Reynolds’ Parody Itself Parodied  Transition  A Precocious Heracles at the Crossroads  The Encounter as Dream-Vision  Heracles as Christ  Christ as Heracles  Variations on the Theme  Two Iconographically Eccentric Versions: Veronese and Dürer  Appendix: Georg Stiernhielm’s Hercules  Heracles at the Crossroads in Eighteenth-Century English Landscape Gardening 2 Music  Appendix: The Illustrations to Metastasio’s Libretto for Alcide Al Bivio 3 Literature and Drama  Prodicus and The Judgement of Paris  Appendix: DE SILENO ET CHROMI ET MNASYLO 4 Pleasure and Virtue Reconciled  Appendix: Andrew Marvell’s Upon Appleton House 5 Parody and Pastiche  Final Reflections on Prodicus’ Heracles at the Crossroads  Appendix: Panofsky’s Hercules Am Scheidewege  Endnote: The Absence of Visual Depictions of Heracles at the Crossroads from Antiquity Part 2: The Judgement of Paris A Note on Nomenclature 6 The Judgement of Paris: The Story’s Original Form  The Story’s Original Form 7 Medieval Literature and Art 8 Renaissance Art Onwards  Appendix: Raphael to Manet and Beyond 9 Literature and Drama 10 Music  Appendix: ‘The Frost, the Sun, and the Wind’ 11 Parody and Pastiche  Endnote: Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress II: The Rake’s Levée  Postscript and Transition Annex  1 Xenophon’s Memorabilia in Modern English Translation  2 Addison’s Translation of Heracles at the Crossroads  3 William Shenstone The Judgement of Hercules  4 Robert Lowth The Choice of Hercules  5 Georg Friedrich Handel The Choice of Hercules  6 James Beattie The Judgement of Paris  7 Thomas Parnell The Judgement of Paris  8 William Congreve Libretto for The Judgement of Paris  Richmond Lattimore Hercules at the Crossroads Bibliography Index

Reviews

""What draws one instantly is the pairing. (...) Davies reminds the reader in a section on ‘Prodicus and the Judgement of Paris’ (101-105) that Sophocles in his lost satyr play, Krisis, and Athenaeus 510C had already drawn the parallels between Heracles and Paris. (...) The writing is clear and crisp and shows an amazing grasp of voluminous amounts of material. His respect, and good-humoured affection, for what he examines is everywhere apparent."" George W.M. Harrison in BMCR 2024.04.27

Author Information

Professor Malcolm Davies Ph. D. (1979) has spent his entire academic life at Oxford. He has published 10 books and numerous articles on a wide range of Greek literature, most recently a commentary on lesser and anonymous fragments of Greek lyric poetry (2021).

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions