Jenny Strauss Clay provides a systematic & convincing reading of the four Homeric hymns as a group, & in relation to the epics of Homer & the 'Theogony' of Hesiod. She reveals unexpected subtleties & coherence, & also shows how the hymns work in combination to provide an over-arching Greek worldview. 'This important and ground-breaking book provides a systematic and convincing reading of these four fascinating poems as a group, and in relation to the epics of Homer and the Theogony of Hesiod. Clay's expert and highly original analysis of the poems' narrative and thematic patterns succeeds brilliantly in demonstrating not only the unexpected subtlety and coherence of each Hymn, but also the ways in which they work in combination to provide an over-arching Greek world-view. This is by far the best book that has been written on this important body of poetry.' -- Mark Griffith, University of California, Berkeley 'Though controversial in many places, this book is of great value to classicists. Its assumption that the poems have an intellectual and "theological" coherence... is welcome and will benefit those who teach the Hymns.' -- Charles Platter, Classical Outlook

The purpose of this study is to find out how and why the "poetics of fiction" arose, its sources, and the materials from which it was created. A series of cultural choices made in archaic and classical Greece produced a clash between the traditional "poetics of truth", which derived poetry from divine inspiration and in the last analysis did not construe the poem as a work of art at all, and the new "poetics of fiction", which derived poetry from art. The eventual succession of the latter, culminating with the Poetics of Aristotle, amounted to an aesthetic revolution because, as a result of it, literary fiction, which since then has become a necessary framework for both the theory and practice of literature in Western tradition, was for the first time separated from non-fiction and given a status of its own.

The Black Death of 1348-50 devastated Europe. With mortality estimates ranging from thirty to sixty percent of the population, it was arguably the most significant event of the fourteenth century. Nonetheless, its force varied across the continent, and so did the ways people responded to it. Surprisingly, there is little Jewish writing extant that directly addresses the impact of the plague, or even of the violence that sometimes accompanied it. This absence is particularly notable for Provence and the Iberian Peninsula, despite rich sources on Jewish life throughout the century. In After the Black Death , Susan L. Einbinder uncovers Jewish responses to plague and violence in fourteenth-century Iberia and Provence. Einbinder's original research reveals a wide, heterogeneous series of Jewish literary responses to the plague, including Sephardic liturgical poetry; a medical tractate written by the Jewish physician Abraham Caslari; epitaphs inscribed on the tombstones of twenty-eight Jewish plague victims once buried in Toledo; and a heretofore unstudied liturgical lament written by Moses Nathan, a survivor of an anti-Jewish massacre that occurred in Tàrrega, Catalonia, in 1348. Through elegant translations and masterful readings, After the Black Death exposes the great diversity in Jewish experiences of the plague, shaped as they were by convention, geography, epidemiology, and politics. Most critically, Einbinder traces the continuity of faith, language, and meaning through the years of the plague and its aftermath. Both before and after the Black Death, Jewish texts that deal with tragedy privilege the communal over the personal and affirm resilience over victimhood. Combined with archival and archaeological testimony, these texts ask us to think deeply about the men and women, sometimes perpetrators as well as victims, who confronted the Black Death. As devastating as the Black Death was, it did not shatter the modes of expression and explanation of those who survived it--a discovery that challenges the applicability of modern trauma theory to the medieval context.

When King Philip VI expelled the Jews in 1306, some 100,000 men, women, and children were driven from royal France into the neighboring lands of Spain, Provence, Italy, and North Africa. The great expulsion of 1306 was arguably one of the most traumatic moments of medieval Jewish history and would prove to be the harbinger of a series of recalls and expulsions, local and general, culminating in King Charles VI's expulsion decree of 1394. Despite the upheavals of the fourteenth century, the literary productivity of Jews was astonishing. Yet there are few direct references to the catastrophic events of 1306, even in Jewish liturgical and historiographic texts, where one would expect to find them. In No Place of Rest , Susan Einbinder coaxes out the literary traces of this traumatic expulsion. Why did the memory of this proud and vibrant Jewish community fade from historical memory? Where do its remnants reside among later communities and readers? From the lyrics of the supposed "Jewish troubadour" Isaac HaGorni to medical texts and astronomical charts, Einbinder studies a range of writings she reveals to be commemorative. Her careful readings uncover the ways in which medieval Jews asserted their identity in exile and, perhaps more important, helped to preserve or efface their history.

Discusses medieval poetry in Hebrew (plus one example in Old French) dealing with martyrdom in the face of forced conversion. Deals with the ideal of Jewish resistance to persecution, but notes also the influence of Christian culture on Jewish literature. Focuses on Jewish martyrs in Blois, Troyes, and Paris. Notes how Talmud burnings impacted on the literature, reflected in the idea of the immortality of both the Jews and their books. Elucidates how the literature, often directed at the educated Jewish elite (the Tosafists and their pupils), reflected ideals of Jewish life as well as death. Suggests the latter ideal may have led most Ashkenazi Jews to prefer "Kiddush Hashem" or exile to conversion, when faced with that choice.

"The classical traditionTelugu, the mellifluous language of Andhra Pradesh in southern India, is one of the richest yet least explored of all South Asian literatures. In this volume Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman have brought together mythological, religious, and secular texts by twenty major poets who wrote between the eleventh and nineteenth centuries, providing an authoritative volume overview of one of the world's most creative poetic traditions. An informative, engaging introduction fleshes out the history of Telugu literature, situating its poets in relation to significant literary themes and historical developments and discussing the relationship between Telugu and the classical literature and poetry of Sanskrit."--Amazon.