Free shipping on orders over $99
Personification in the Greek World

Personification in the Greek World

From Antiquity to Byzantium

by Judith Herrin and Emma Stafford
Hardback
Publication Date: 21/10/2005

Share This Book:

 
$252.00
Personification, the anthropomorphic representation of any non-human thing, is a ubiquitous feature of ancient Greek literature and art. Natural phenomena (earth, sky, rivers), places (cities, countries), divisions of time (seasons, months, a lifetime), states of the body (health, sleep, death), emotions (love, envy, fear), and political concepts (victory, democracy, war) all appear in human, usually female, form. Some have only fleeting incarnations, others become widely-recognised figures, and others again became so firmly established as deities in the imagination of the community that they received elements of cult associated with the Olympian gods. Though often seen as a feature of the Hellenistic period, personifications can be found in literature, art and cult from the Archaic period onwards; with the development of the art of allegory in the Hellenistic period, they came to acquire more 'intellectual' overtones; the use of allegory as an interpretative tool then enabled personifications to survive the advent of Christianity, to remain familiar figures in the art and literature of Late Antiquity and beyond. The twenty-one papers presented here cover personification in Greek literature, art and religion from its pre-Homeric origins to the Byzantine period. Classical Athens features prominently, but other areas of both mainland Greece and the Greek East are well represented. Issues which come under discussion include: problems of identification and definition; the question of gender; the status of personifications in relation to the gods; the significance of personification as a literary device; the uses and meanings of personification in different visual media; personification as a means of articulating place, time and worldly power. The papers reflect the enormous range of contexts in which personification occurs, indicating the ubiquity of the phenomenon in the ancient Greek world.
ISBN:
9780754650317
9780754650317
Category:
Literary studies: classical
Format:
Hardback
Publication Date:
21-10-2005
Publisher:
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Pages:
398
Dimensions (mm):
234x156x30mm
Weight:
0.73kg
Judith Herrin

Judith Herrin won the Heineken Prize for History (the Dutch 'Nobel Prize') in 2016, for her pioneering work on the early Medieval Mediterranean world, especially the role of Byzantium, the influence of Islam and the significance of women.

She is the author of Byzantium- The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, The Formation of Christendom, devoted to the Mediterranean world from the mid-sixth to the mid-ninth century A.D., A Medieval Miscellany and Women in Purple.

She worked in Birmingham, Paris, Munich, Istanbul and Princeton before becoming Professor of Late Antiqueand Byzantine Studies at King's College London, from which she retired in 2008. Judith has published many scholarly articles, excavated in Greece, Cyprus and Turkey, and was on the editorial board Past and Present, for many years serving as Vice-Chair, from 2000-2013.

Click 'Notify Me' to get an email alert when this item becomes available

Reviews

Be the first to review Personification in the Greek World.