Compitum

Mario Baumann et Vasileios Liotsakis (éd.), Digressions in Classical Historiography, Berlin, 2024.

Éditeur : De Gruyter
Collection : Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes, 150
356 pages
ISBN : 9783111320755
119,95 €

Although digressive discourse constitutes a key feature of Greco-Roman historiography, we possess no collective volume on the matter. The chapters of this book fill this gap by offering an overall view of the use of digressions in Greco-Roman historical prose from its beginning in the 5th century BCE up to the Imperial Era. Ancient historiographers traditionally took as digressions the cases in which they interrupted their focused chronological narration. Such cases include lengthy geographical descriptions, prolepses or analepses, and authorial comments. Ancient historiographers rarely deign to interrupt their narration's main storyline with excursuses which are flagrantly disconnected from it. Instead, they often "coat" their digressions with distinctive patterns of their own thinking, thus rendering them ideological and thematic milestones within an entire work. Furthermore, digressions may constitute pivotal points in the very structure of ancient historical narratives, while ancient historians also use excursuses to establish a dialogue with their readers and to activate them in various ways. All these aspects of digressions in Greco-Roman historiography are studied in detail in the chapters of this volume.

Source : De Gruyter

W. Jeffrey Tatum, A Noble Ruin. Mark Antony, Civil War, and the Collapse of the Roman Republic, Oxford, 2023.

Éditeur : Oxford University Press
496 pages
ISBN : 9780197694909
$ 34.95

A complex and captivating portrait of Mark Antony that offers a fresh perspective on the fall of the Roman Republic
In his lifetime, Mark Antony was a famous man. Ally and avenger of Julius Caesar, rhetorical target of Cicero, lover of Cleopatra, and mortal enemy of Octavian (the future emperor Augustus), Antony played a leading role in the transformation of the Roman world. Ever since his and Cleopatra's demise at the hands of Octavian, he has remained famous, or infamous, a figure of recurring fascination.
His life--variegated, passionate, sensual, bold, and tragic--inspires vigorous reactions. Nearly everyone has a view on Antony. For Cicero, he was a distasteful though talented man. Octavian fashioned him a dangerous failure, a Roman noble corrupted by his appetites and his lust for Cleopatra. Later historians adopted and adapted these themes, delivering their readers an Antony who was irresistibly depraved, startlingly brave, sometimes cunning, but almost always constitutionally incapable of choosing the right side of history. From these, especially Plutarch's compelling portrait, Shakespeare gave us the chivalrous and unstudied Antony of Antony and Cleopatra.

Cécile Lanéry-Ouvrard, L'hagiographie latine à Rome et en Italie du Sud entre 550 et 750, Turnhout, 2024.

Éditeur : Brepols
Collection : Corpus Christianorum. Hagiographies, 9
962 pages
ISBN : 978-2-503-60028-4
385 € EXCL. VAT.

Dans l'Italie des VIe-VIIIe siècles, déchirée entre Lombards et Byzantins, l'hagiographie fut la forme littéraire la plus pratiquée, et sans doute aussi la plus communément appréciée. À Rome et en Italie du Sud, clercs et moines s'affairèrent à composer en latin, ou à traduire du grec en latin, des textes qui témoignaient de leur dévotion pour les martyrs du temps des persécutions. Leurs récits romanesques, de qualité et d'intérêt très divers, accompagnèrent ainsi l'entrée de la péninsule dans le Moyen Âge. Ils alimentèrent la curiosité des pèlerins et des fidèles pour les saints anciens, comme pour ceux, venus d'Orient, dont le culte avait pris plus récemment racine en Italie. Ce gisement documentaire, vestige inestimable d'une époque contrastée et parfois dramatique, est toutefois d'un abord difficile : les pièces concernées constituent un ensemble complexe de dossiers enchevêtrés, de textes anonymes, souvent très approximativement datés ou localisés.

Claire Lechevalier et Brigitte Poitrenaud-Lamesi (éd.), Un besoin d'Homère. Usages contemporains d'une œuvre antique, Villeneuve d'Ascq, 2024.

Éditeur : Presses Universitaires du Septentrion
Collection : Littératures
308 pages
ISBN : 978-2-7574-4094-0
24 €

Pourquoi avons-nous encore besoin d'Homère aujourd'hui ? Comment expliquer cette nouvelle actualité de l'Iliade et de l'Odyssée et le phénomène de cristallisation auquel elles semblent donner lieu ? À travers une analyse de leurs réappropriations multiples dans la littérature et les arts contemporains, il s'agit de repenser les usages et les modalités du rapport à l'œuvre antique pour remettre en perspective les notions d'héritage et de patrimoine homériques dans le cadre d'une « littérature mondiale ». Qu'en est-il des nouvelles formes de circulation, de citation des textes et de la tradition qui s'est constituée à partir de leur réception ? En quoi les œuvres homériques permettent-elles de représenter et de penser les crises et les interrogations de notre temps ? Comment l'art de l'aède peut-il être à la source d'une écriture fictionnelle moderne ? Bref, en quoi l'Iliade et l'Odyssée sont- elles encore agissantes dans la littérature, l'art et plus généralement le monde contemporains ?

Source : Presses Universitaires du Septentrion

Monica Brinzei, Chris Schabel, Iacobus de Altavilla. Lectura in libros Sententiarum, I. Principium, Questiones 1-6, Turnhout, 2024.

Éditeur : Brepols
Collection : Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, 312
cxxxii + 376 p. pages
ISBN : 978-2-503-60725-2
€ 425 (excl. VAT)

This is the first critical edition of a major theological work by a Cistercian from a medieval university: the questions on book I of the Sentences by James of Eltville (Jacobus de Altavilla, d. 1392), monk and later abbot of the majestic Eberbach Abbey, the filming location of many of the scenes in The Name of the Rose. The product of bachelor lectures delivered in 1369-1370 at the magnificent Bernardins in Paris just south of Notre-Dame across the Seine, James' Lectura in libros Sententiarum survives in almost two dozen manuscripts. Based on a complete collation of all the witnesses, the editio princeps provides access to a text that illuminates a relatively dark period in the history of scholasticism, portrays the status quaestionis on many issues in philosophical theology between the Black Death and the Great Schism, and illustrates the importance of later-medieval Cistercian theologians and their symbiotic relationship with the Augustinian Hermits who dominated the field from the 1330s to the 1370s. Through the exodus of German scholars from Paris after the outbreak of the Schism, James of Eltville's ideas spread to the new faculties of theology founded in Germanic lands where they exerted a profound influence.

Fernando Domínguez Reboiras et Jordi Gayà Estelrich, Raimundus Lullus. Opera latina XL (76-79) Parisiis anno 1298 composita, Turnhout, 2024.

Éditeur : Brepols
Collection : Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, 302
lxxxv + 610 p. pages
ISBN : 978-2-503-60638-5
€ 465 (excl. VAT)

During his second stay in Paris (1297-1299), Ramon Llull developed an extraordinary literary activity writing 16 works, some of them of considerable length. His attention was once again focused on the presentation of the Art, either to summarize it in accordance with the new changes he had introduced (beginning with the Tabula generalis, op. 53, ROL XXVII), or to present it as a method of renewal of the particular sciences (astronomy and geometry) or as an instrument in the debate on the errors condemned by the bishop of Paris in 1277. The four works presented in this volume are examples of this activity.