Alex Purves
University of California, Los Angeles, Classics, Faculty Member
- Homer, Herodotus, Senses, Especially Touch, Cultural Geography, Hesiodic Poetry, Archaic Poetry, and 18 moreXenophon, Aeschylus, Classics, Homeric poetry, Ancient Greek Literature, W.G. Sebald (Area Studies), Euripides, Orality-Literacy Studies, Touch, History of the Senses, The Senses, Greek Epic, Greek Tragedy, Poetry, Odyssey, Philosophy of Mind, Sport, and Greek Literatureedit
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Like us, the ancient Greeks and Romans came to know and understand the world through their senses. Yet sensory experience has rarely been considered in the study of antiquity and, when the senses are examined, sight is regularly... more
Like us, the ancient Greeks and Romans came to know and understand the world through their senses. Yet sensory experience has rarely been considered in the study of antiquity and, when the senses are examined, sight is regularly privileged. 'Synaesthesia and the Ancient Senses' presents a radical reappraisal of antiquity's textures, flavours, and aromas, sounds and sights. It offers both a fresh look at society in the ancient world and an opportunity to deepen the reading of classical literature. The book will appeal to readers in classical society and literature, philosophy and cultural history. All Greek and Latin is translated and technical matters are explained for the non-specialist. The introduction sets the ancient senses within the history of aesthetics and the subsequent essays explores the senses throughout the classical period and on to the modern reception of classical literature.
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In this wide-ranging survey of ancient Greek narrative from archaic epic to classical prose, Alex Purves shows how stories unfold in space as well as in time. She traces a shift in authorial perspective, from a godlike overview to the... more
In this wide-ranging survey of ancient Greek narrative from archaic epic to classical prose, Alex Purves shows how stories unfold in space as well as in time. She traces a shift in authorial perspective, from a godlike overview to the more focused outlook of human beings caught up in a developing plot, inspired by advances in cartography, travel, and geometry. Her analysis of the temporal and spatial dimensions of ancient narrative leads to new interpretations of important texts by Homer, Herodotus, and Xenophon, among others, showing previously unnoticed connections between epic and prose. Drawing on the methods of classical philology, narrative theory, and cultural geography, Purves recovers a poetics of spatial representation that lies at the core of the Greeks’ conception of their plots.
Contents
Introduction: the perfect surveyor; 1. The Eusynoptic Iliad: visualizing space and movement in the poem; 2. Paths and measures: epic space and the Odyssey; 3. The world in the hand: Anaximander, Pherecydes, and the invention of cartography; 4. Map and narrative: Herodotus' Histories; 5. Losing the way home: Xenophon's Anabasis; 6. Finding (things at) home: Xenophon's Oeconomicus.
Contents
Introduction: the perfect surveyor; 1. The Eusynoptic Iliad: visualizing space and movement in the poem; 2. Paths and measures: epic space and the Odyssey; 3. The world in the hand: Anaximander, Pherecydes, and the invention of cartography; 4. Map and narrative: Herodotus' Histories; 5. Losing the way home: Xenophon's Anabasis; 6. Finding (things at) home: Xenophon's Oeconomicus.
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In this paper I consider ways in which seawater-both on its surface and in its depths-opens up alternative forms of thought and expression in Homer, especially with respect to the body. By tracking the relationship between body and simile... more
In this paper I consider ways in which seawater-both on its surface and in its depths-opens up alternative forms of thought and expression in Homer, especially with respect to the body. By tracking the relationship between body and simile as it is mediated by the surface of the sea, I argue that water emerges as an especially mobile and adaptive medium for expressing the transformation that takes place between self and simile in Homer. In the Iliad, similes are wellknown for bringing weather, waves, and other aspects of the natural environment into the poem, whereas in the Odyssey those aspects more often introduce similes of their own. I offer a reading of the shipwreck scene in Odyssey 5 to suggest that the body's struggle to stay afloat is matched there, on a formal level, by the role of waves in drawing simile and body to the sea's surface. I then address a different kind of figurative language (closer to metaphor and associated with grief) that takes place in the depths, through readings of scenes in Books 18 and 24 of the Iliad and Archilochus fragment 13.
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arma uirumque cano Of arms and the man I sing Vergil, Aeneid 1.1 παῖδα σὴν πατὴρ ὁ φύσας αὐτόχειρ μέλλει κτανεῖν The father who raised your daughter intends to kill her by his own hand Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis 873 There was something... more
arma uirumque cano Of arms and the man I sing Vergil, Aeneid 1.1 παῖδα σὴν πατὴρ ὁ φύσας αὐτόχειρ μέλλει κτανεῖν The father who raised your daughter intends to kill her by his own hand Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis 873 There was something about being a writer collaborating with a very important figure, where I was feeling this kind of creepy power of telling this story and getting to put my spin on it. That's not inherently bad, but I just thought, wow, wouldn't it be fun, when you finally have the baton, to be like, forget batons, you know? esperanza spalding, interview with N.K. Walecki (2021)
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Research Interests: Homer and Henry Fuseli
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Not pages falling off the calendar, not notches marked in a tree, but knots unraveled from a length of string—this is the way that Darius chooses to count his days in Scythia. In Herodotus’s Histories 4.98, Darius gives to the Ionians a... more
Not pages falling off the calendar, not notches marked in a tree, but
knots unraveled from a length of string—this is the way that Darius
chooses to count his days in Scythia. In Herodotus’s Histories 4.98,
Darius gives to the Ionians a leather strap with sixty knots in it, with
orders that one knot should be untied each day for as long as he is gone.
It is not the first time in the Histories we see a tyrant setting specific
orders when it comes to counting.1 But the incident with the strap,
because it sets Egyptian and Scythian practices of measuring and
marking at odds with one another, takes on a symbolic and as yet unrecognized force within Herodotus’s work. I demonstrate in this paper that
Darius sets up the knotted cord as a counting device that resembles an
Egyptian system of measurement (the schoinos), but that he manifestly
fails to comprehend the meaning of his cord in the context of Scythia.
knots unraveled from a length of string—this is the way that Darius
chooses to count his days in Scythia. In Herodotus’s Histories 4.98,
Darius gives to the Ionians a leather strap with sixty knots in it, with
orders that one knot should be untied each day for as long as he is gone.
It is not the first time in the Histories we see a tyrant setting specific
orders when it comes to counting.1 But the incident with the strap,
because it sets Egyptian and Scythian practices of measuring and
marking at odds with one another, takes on a symbolic and as yet unrecognized force within Herodotus’s work. I demonstrate in this paper that
Darius sets up the knotted cord as a counting device that resembles an
Egyptian system of measurement (the schoinos), but that he manifestly
fails to comprehend the meaning of his cord in the context of Scythia.
This paper examines the relationship between wind, narrative, and time in Homer. It begins by considering Fränkel’s observation that weather rarely occurs outside the similes in the Iliad, and goes on to show that wind plays a subtle but... more
This paper examines the relationship between wind, narrative, and
time in Homer. It begins by considering Fränkel’s observation that weather
rarely occurs outside the similes in the Iliad, and goes on to show that wind
plays a subtle but fundamental role in shaping the narratives of both the Iliad
and the Odyssey.
time in Homer. It begins by considering Fränkel’s observation that weather
rarely occurs outside the similes in the Iliad, and goes on to show that wind
plays a subtle but fundamental role in shaping the narratives of both the Iliad
and the Odyssey.
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This paper addresses the question of the relation between mortal and immortal time in the Iliad as it is represented by the physical act of falling. I begin by arguing that falling serves as a point of reference throughout the poem for a... more
This paper addresses the question of the relation between mortal and immortal time in the Iliad as it is represented by the physical act of falling. I begin by arguing that falling serves as a point of reference throughout the poem for a concept of time that is specifically human. It is well known that mortals fall at the moment of death in the poem, but it has not been recognized that the movement of the fall is also connected with the time of birth, aging, and generation. In light of the significance of falling for mortals, I then go on to examine the problematic case of two particular immortals who fall in the Iliad. When Hephaestus tumbles down to earth from
Olympus, and when Ares is knocked flat on the battlefield, both gods, I argue, also “fall into” human time. This complicates their status as ageless and eternal beings, and draws into question the different temporal registers at work in the narrative (such as repetition, “long time,” and time that is steady or continuous [empedos]). The single action of falling brings together several key concepts in the poem which hinge on the issue of the separation between the mortal and immortal spheres in the Iliad.
Olympus, and when Ares is knocked flat on the battlefield, both gods, I argue, also “fall into” human time. This complicates their status as ageless and eternal beings, and draws into question the different temporal registers at work in the narrative (such as repetition, “long time,” and time that is steady or continuous [empedos]). The single action of falling brings together several key concepts in the poem which hinge on the issue of the separation between the mortal and immortal spheres in the Iliad.
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In the Odyssey, a poem that charts the unfamiliar territory of regions that were, in antiquity as today, “as hard to trace as the cobbler of Aeolus’s bag of winds” (Strabo 1.2.15), the possibility of losing one’s way is a recurrent motif.... more
In the Odyssey, a poem that charts the unfamiliar territory
of regions that were, in antiquity as today, “as hard to trace as the cobbler
of Aeolus’s bag of winds” (Strabo 1.2.15), the possibility of losing one’s
way is a recurrent motif. In this paper, I examine one isolated example of a
“lost” or unmappable landscape in the poem, in an episode that never actually takes place in the Odyssey, but is foretold twice: fi rst by Teiresias in the Underworld (11.121–31) and later by Odysseus to Penelope back on Ithaca (23.267–77). The story is well known, for it describes Odysseus’s foray into a particularly unusual topography.
of regions that were, in antiquity as today, “as hard to trace as the cobbler
of Aeolus’s bag of winds” (Strabo 1.2.15), the possibility of losing one’s
way is a recurrent motif. In this paper, I examine one isolated example of a
“lost” or unmappable landscape in the poem, in an episode that never actually takes place in the Odyssey, but is foretold twice: fi rst by Teiresias in the Underworld (11.121–31) and later by Odysseus to Penelope back on Ithaca (23.267–77). The story is well known, for it describes Odysseus’s foray into a particularly unusual topography.