Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization

Koen De Temmerman, Kristoffel Demoen

Cambridge University Press, May 10, 2016 - History

Ancient biography is now a well-established and popular field of study among classicists as well as many scholars of literature and history more generally. In particular biographies offer important insights into the dynamics underlying ancient performance of the self and social behaviour, issues currently of crucial importance in classical studies. They also raise complex issues of narrativity and fictionalization. This volume examines a range of ancient texts which are or purport to be biographical and explores how formal narrative categories such as time, space and character are constructed and how they address (highlight, question, thematize, underscore or problematize) the borderline between historicity and fictionality. In doing so, it makes a major contribution not only to the study of ancient biographical writing but also to broader narratological approaches to ancient texts.

Contents

• Civic and subversive biography in antiquity: 26
• Fictional biography as popular literature?: 47
• Parallel narratives and possible worlds in Plutarchs Life: 65
• The Socratic paradigm: 80
• The Apologia as a miseenabyme in Philostratus Life: 97
• The Greek translation: 117
• and hagiographical intertextuality in Sulpicius Severus: 133
• Mirroring virtues in Plutarchs Lives of Agis: 163
• Zeno the Stoic: 181
• Never say die Assassinating emperors in Suetonius Lives: 200
• Poetry and fiction in Suetonius Illustrious Men: 217
• Narratological implications: 240
• Letters and the life of a tyrannicide: 259
• Timing and biographical representation: 278
• Kalasiris on the Life of Homer: 293
• Bibliography: 306
• General index: 343
• Index locorum: 349

About the author

Koen De Temmerman is Research Professor of Ancient Literatures and European Literary History in the Department of Literary Studies, Ghent University. He is the recipient of prestigious awards, such as the Triennial Prize for Humanities of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (2008) and an ERC Starting Grant (2013). He has published extensively on ancient narrative literature, and is the author of Crafting Characters: Heroes and Heroines in the Ancient Greek Novel (2014) and the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Biography (forthcoming).

Kristoffel Demoen is Professor of Ancient and Byzantine Greek in the Department of Literary Studies, Ghent University. He is the author of three books and over seventy scholarly articles, and (co-)editor of seven books. His main research interests are related to the transmission, transformation and adaptation of the ancient literary and cultural tradition, especially from the post-classical to the Byzantine period. He is co-editor of L'Antiquit Classique and Byzantion, and president of the Belgian Society for Byzantine Studies.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization
• Editors: Koen De Temmerman, Kristoffel Demoen
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2016
• ISBN: 1316598500, 9781316598504
• Subjects: History / Ancient / General