Books by Laura Miguélez-Cavero
Chapter 1 Introduction 1. Imperial Greek Epic-What is in a name? 2. Imperial Greek Epic and Cultu... more Chapter 1 Introduction 1. Imperial Greek Epic-What is in a name? 2. Imperial Greek Epic and Cultural History 3. The space of Imperial Epics 4. Nonnus of Panopolis AD), who composed a poetic version of the Gospel of John (Paraphrase of the Gospel of John) 6 and the Dionysiaca 7 on the life and feats of Dionysus; finally, Musaeus (Hero and Leander, 8 late fifth c. AD), Colluthus (Rape of Helen, early sixth c. AD) 9 and Christodorus of Coptus (hexameter ekphrasis of the statues in the gymnasium of Zeuxippus, extant as AP 2, late fifth or early sixth c. AD). 10 Epic 'high-brow' poetry was actually part of a broader cultural continuum. Thus, hexametric compositions extant on papyrus, both by students and amateurs, 11 illustrate the widespread practice of composition in Homeric style, sometimes related to performances in public agones. 12 The epic hexameter had additional public visibility for its use on inscriptions of different types. 13 Take, for instance, the inscriptions with religious, magical and prophetic content. Apollinean oracles in epic hexameters, especially those in Asia Minor, experienced a revival in the early Empire, and were composed in terms which appealed to polytheists, Jews and Christians, and thus illustrate the general religious atmosphere beyond the individual creeds, a testimony of the religious fluidity of the period. 14 Also inscribed on stone, dice and alphabet oracles 15 resorted to Homeric references (and other rhetorical and literary strategies) in order to gain semnotes (both 'solemnity' and 'dignity'). 16
Papers by Laura Miguélez-Cavero
Literature 3, no. 2: 159-200, 2023
A systematic socio-cultural study of the uses of Christian poetry in the late antique Greek-speak... more A systematic socio-cultural study of the uses of Christian poetry in the late antique Greek-speaking Mediterranean is still lacking. Most literary overviews restrict themselves to an overview of the extant texts and some programmatic reflections in the poetry by Gregory of Nazianzus. This paper seeks to address this matter by a combined reading of the best-known poetic forms (including the programmatic reflections by Gregory) and the poems copied in the Codex Visionum (now in the Bodmer Collection). Since the edition of the latter was completed in 1999, they have often featured in studies on the origin of monasticism and are well known in papyrological circles, but have received insufficient attention from literature and cultural historians.
S. Goldberg (ed.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2018
S. Goldberg (ed.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2015
Text expanded to include discussion of the Abduction of Helen and analysis of Colluthus's literar... more Text expanded to include discussion of the Abduction of Helen and analysis of Colluthus's literary influences. Bibliography updated to reflect current research.
D. Meyer – C. Urlacher (eds.), Dictionnaire de l’épigramme littéraire dans l’Antiquité grecque et romaine, 2022
R. Bagnall – K. Brodersen – C. Champion – A. Erskine – S. Huebner (eds.), Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 4168-9
Doroszewski et al. (eds.), Nonnus of Panopolis in Context III: Old Questions and New Perspectives, 2021
Symbolae Osloenses 93.1, 209-33 , 2019
This study considers the voice of the narrator in the Paraphrase of the Gospel of John, written b... more This study considers the voice of the narrator in the Paraphrase of the Gospel of John, written by Nonnus of Panopolis in the fifth century, focusing on his selfpresentation as both Johannine and Homeric narrator. The Paraphrase of the Gospel of John lacks explicit statements of poetic intent similar to the prefaces of other poetic paraphrases, such as Juvencus' Evangeliorum libri quattuor and the Metaphrasis Psalmorum, but a close reading of Nonnus' poetic version of the so-called "Hymn to the Logos" and the gospel original (Jo. :-) reveals similar strategies at work. The paraphrastic narrator incorporates to his reading of the gospel later exegesis, reserves John's characteristic repetition of vocabulary for significant terms, and signals his ambivalence towards Homer through his avoidance of Homeric vocabulary in the first lines of his poem.
S. McGill – E. Watts (eds.), Blackwell’s Companion to Late Antique Literature, Hoboken (NJ), 259-80
B. Verhelst – T. Scheijnen (eds.), Greek and Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity. Form, Tradition, and Context, 2022
J. J. Clauss – M. Cuypers – A. Kahane (eds.), The Gods of Greek Hexameter Poetry. From the Archaic Age to Late Antiquity and Beyond, Stuttgart (Franz Steiner Verlag), 237-248
"Bulletin critique" of Revue des Études tardo-antiques (RET), vol. 3 (2013-2014), p. 299-321., Jul 20, 2014
Peer-review. Les travaux adressés pour publication à la revue seront soumis -sous la forme d'un d... more Peer-review. Les travaux adressés pour publication à la revue seront soumis -sous la forme d'un double anonymat -à évaluation par deux spécialistes, dont l'un au moins extérieur au comité scientifique ou éditorial. La liste des experts externes sera publiée tous les deux ans.
H. Bannert – N. Aringer – N. Kröll (eds.), Nonnus of Panopolis in Context, 2016
The Codex Visionum reflects the religious identity of a community of δίκαιοι, but also their cult... more The Codex Visionum reflects the religious identity of a community of δίκαιοι, but also their cultural identity. This was an established community, which already owned a rich library and decided to copy a composite book to gather together texts that had already been composed, chosen because together they create a coherent discourse, with clear mottos and easily recognisable language and rhetoric. It is on the different areas where rhetoric is present in the poems of the Codex that this paper will focus. Starting with the general rhetorical discourse (1), I shall then go on to analyse the rhetorical structure of the Codex and its links with the genre of biography (2), the influence of the rhetorical rules of biography (3) and the presence of rhetorical micro-structures (4). To this I will add some notes on the reasons for and the consequences of the choice of poetry as the vehicle of expression of Christian ideas in the Codex (5), and, in manner of a conclusion (6), some remarks on the attitude towards paideia in the Codex, within the general framework of Christian attitudes towards classical paideia.
This paper attempts an analysis of the rhetorical elements of novelty in the Dionysiaca of the fi... more This paper attempts an analysis of the rhetorical elements of novelty in the Dionysiaca of the fifth-century Graeco-Egyptian Nonnus of Panopolis. The author concludes that the poet restricts his references to novelty to the second proem of the Dionysiaca, a programmatic space in which it became a common element. Though the poem was considered to embody the late antique 'new style' already in its time, novelty was too perilous a concept to be used extensively throughout the poem to characterise Dionysus and his world.
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Books by Laura Miguélez-Cavero
Papers by Laura Miguélez-Cavero