Compitum

Koen De Temmerman (éd.), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Biography, Oxford, 2020.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
800 pages
ISBN : 9780198703013
£ 110.00

Biography is one of the most widespread literary genres worldwide. Biographies and autobiographies of actors, politicians, Nobel Prize winners, and other famous figures have never been more prominent in book shops and publishers' catalogues. This Handbook offers a wide-ranging, multi-authored survey on biography in Antiquity from its earliest representatives to Late Antiquity. It aims to be a broad introduction and a reference tool on the one hand, and to move significantly beyond the state-of-the-art on the other. To this end, it addresses conceptual questions about this sprawling genre, offers both in-depth readings of key texts and diachronic studies, and deals with the reception of ancient biography across multiple eras up to the present day. In addition, it takes a wide approach to the concept of ancient biography by examining biographical depictions in different textual and visual media (epigraphy, sculpture, architecture) and by providing outlines of biographical developments in ancient and late antique cultures other than Graeco-Roman.
Highly accessible, this book aims at a broad audience ranging from specialists to newcomers in the field. Chapters provide English translations of ancient (and modern) terminology and citations. In addition, all individual chapters are concluded by a section containing suggestions for further reading on their specific topic.

Table of Contents

Part I. Introduction
1:Writing (About) Ancient Lives: Scholarship, Definitions and Concepts, Koen De Temmerman
2:What are Bioi/Vitae? Generic Self-Consciousness in Ancient Biography, Sean A. Adams
3:Individual and Collected Lives in Antiquity, Jeffrey Benecker
4:Popular Biography, Ioannis M. Konstantakos
5:Jewish Biography, Joseph Geiger
6:Christian Biography, Scott Fitzgerald Johnson
Part II. Reading Biographies
7:Fifth-Century Preliminaries, Christopher Pelling
8:Isocrates' Evagoras: The Educational Ends of the 'First' Biography in Classical Greece, Takis Poulakos
9:Xenophon of Athens, Noreen Humble
10:Ex uno fonte multi rivuli? Unity and Multiplicity in Hellenistic Biography, Tiziano Dorandi
11:Nepos' Life of Atticus, Nicolaus' Life of Caesar and the Genre of Political Biography in the Age of Augustus, Rex Stem
12:Biography and Praise in Trajanic Rome: Tacitus' Agricola and Pliny's Panegyricus, Christopher Whitton
13:Plutarch's Parallel Lives, Aristoula Georgiadou and Michele A. Lucchesi
14:Plutarch: Lives of the Caesars (Galba, Otho) and Lives of Aratus and Artaxerxes, Luc Van der Stockt
15:Types of Life-Writing in Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars and Illustrious Men, Dennis Pausch
16:The Alexander Romance, Corinne Jouanno
17:Lucian: Satirical and Idealising Lives (Peregrinus, Alexander, Demonax), Graham Anderson
18:The Biographer as Literary Artist: Form and Content in Philostratus' Apollonius, Adam Kemezis
19:Diogenes Laertius and Philosophical Lives, Stephen White
20:A Bishop's Biography: Eusebius of Caesarea and The Life of Constantine, James Corke-Webster
21:Augustine's Confessions as Autobiography, Michael Stuart Williams
22:Solitude and Biography in Jerome's Life of Hilarion, Jason König
Part III. Tracing Biographees
23:: Lives of Homer, Suzanne Saïd
24:Ancient Biographies of Statesmen, Jacqueline Klooster
25:Sophists, Kendra Eshleman
26:Philosophers and their Neoplatonic Lives: Problemsand Paradigms, Graeme Miles
27:Holy Men: Lives of Miracle Workers, Apostles, and Saints, Danny Praet
28:Martyrs and Life-Writing in Late Antiquity, Koen De Temmerman and Danny Praet
29:Monastic Lives, Mark Edwards
Part IV. Cultures
30:Syriac Biography, Muriel Debié
31:Coptic Life Stories, Arietta Papaconstantinou
32:Armenian Biography in Late Antiquity, S. Peter Cowe
33:Arabic Biography, Faustina Doufikar-Aerts
Part V. Media
34:Biographical Monuments: Displaying Selves and Lives in Ancient Egypt, Elizabeth Frood
35:Engraved Lives: Biographical Material in Epigraphical Sources, Christof Schuler and Florian R. Forster
36:Depicted Lives: The Role of The Visual Arts in Sophistic Self-Representation, Zahra Newby
37:Triumphant Lives: Portraits, Statues and Triumphal Arches in Imperial Rome, Eric Varner
Part VI. Reception
38:Byzantine Biography, Martin Hinterberger
39:Roman Biography in the Medieval West: Did Classical Texts Facilitate Complex Literary Portraits in the Middle Ages?, Lars Boje Mortensen
40:Ancient Biography and the Italian Renaissance: Old Models and New Developments, Thomas Hendrickson
41:Ancient Biography in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Enrica Zanin
42:After-Lives: Biographical Receptions of Greek and Roman Poets in the Twentieth Century, Nora Goldschmidt

Source : Oxford University Press