Ancient Anger: Perspectives from Homer to Galen

Susanna Braund, Glenn W. Most

Cambridge University Press, Jan 15, 2004 - Literary Collections - 325 pages

Anger is found everywhere in the ancient world, starting with the very first word of the Iliad and continuing through all literary genres and every aspect of public and private life. Yet it is only recently, as a variety of disciplines start to devote attention to the history and nature of the emotions, that Classicists, ancient historians and ancient philosophers have begun to study anger in antiquity with the seriousness and attention it deserves. This volume brings together a number of significant studies by authors from different disciplines and countries, on literary, philosophical, medical and political aspects of ancient anger from Homer until the Roman Imperial Period. It studies some of the most important ancient sources and provides a paradigmatic selection of approaches to them, and should stimulate further research on this important subject in a number of fields.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Iliadic anger and the crosscultural study of emotion: 11
• Chapter 2 Anger and pity in Homers Iliad: 50
• the symbolic politics ofin Athens: 76
• the strategies of status: 99
• Chapter 5 The rage of women: 121
• Chapter 6 Thumos as masculine ideal and social pathology in ancient Greek magical spells: 144
• Chapter 7 Anger and gender in Charitons Chaereas and Callirhoe: 163
• anger in babies and small children: 185
• anger in Virgils Aeneid and Hellenistic philosophy: 208
• problems of theodicy in Lucans epic of defeat: 229
• anger beasts and cannibalism: 250
• References: 286
• Index of passages cited: 306
• Index of proper names: 314
• Index of topics: 321

About the author

Susanna Morton Braund is Professor of Classics at Yale University. She has authored books and articles on Roman satire, Roman epic and other aspects of Roman literature, including Beyond Anger: A Study of Juvenal's Third Book of Satires (1988) and Latin Literature (2002). With Christopher Gill, she co-edited The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (1997). Her current major ongoing project is a commentary on Seneca's De Clementia.

Glenn W. Most is Professor of Greek Philology at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and Professor in the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago. He is the author of The Measures of Praise: Structure and Function in Pindar's Second Pythian and Seventh Nemean Odes (1985) and editor and co-editor of numerous books on classical studies, literary theory and philosophy.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Ancient Anger: Perspectives from Homer to Galen; Volume 32 of Yale Classical Studies
• Editors: Susanna Braund, Glenn W. Most
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2004
• ISBN: 113945000X, 9781139450003
• Length: 325 pages
• Subjects: Literary Collections / Ancient & Classical; Literary Criticism / Ancient & Classical; Psychology / General; Social Science / Anthropology / General