Labor Imperfectus: Unfinished, Incomplete, Partial Texts in Classical Antiquity

Published by De Gruyter 2024

Labor Imperfectus

Unfinished, Incomplete, Partial Texts in Classical Antiquity

Edited by: Jacqueline Fabre-Serris , Marco Formisano and Stavros Frangoulidis

Volume 157 in the series Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111340944

Overview
Contents

About this book

Unfinishedness and incompleteness are a central feature of ancient Greek and Roman literature that has often been taken for granted but not deeply examined; many texts have been transmitted to us incomplete. How and to what extent has this feature of many texts influenced their aesthetic perception and interpretation, and how does it still influence them today? Also, how do various editorial arrangements of fragmentary texts influence the reconstruction of closure? These important questions offer the opportunity to bring together specialists working on Greek and Roman texts across various genres: epic, tragedy, poetry, mythographic texts, rhetorical texts, philosophical treatises, and the novel. Reading a text by focusing on its current unfinishedness or incompleteness, or the textual signs suggesting an unfinished or incomplete state, the contributors examine the relations between author, reader and text as underscored by the verbal, generic and aesthetic features of each work. This edited volume brings together a broad spectrum of approaches to ancient and modern texts and aims to reach out to a broad scholarly community consisting not only of Classicists but also scholars of other literature and aesthetics.

Author / Editor information

J. Fabre-Serris, Univ. of Lille, France; M. Formisano, Ghent Univ., Belgium; S. Frangoulidis, Aristotle Univ. of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
List of Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	XI
Introduction Jacqueline Fabre-Serris and Marco Formisano Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: Facing Unfinishedness
From the Authorial to the Editorial tour de force: How to Read Callimachus’ Aetia and Hecale Evina Sistakou Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
How to Walk Along a Pioneer’s Fragmentary Track: Theophrastus’ Meteorological Studies Myrto Garani Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
Fragments of Roman Sexuality in Petronius’ Satyricon Craig Williams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
Part II: Questioning (In)Completeness
The “Alexandrian End” of the Odyssey Richard Hunter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
Reconsidering Closure in Ovid’s Fasti John F. Miller Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
Statius’ Achilleid: How to Break off a carmen perpetuum Philip Hardie Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
Literatura Incompleta: Borges’ Antiquity between World and Universe Laura Jansen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
Part III: Constitutive Unfinishedness
Sed redeo ad formulam (Off. 3.20): Completeness and Imperfection in Cicero’s De officiis Rosa Rita Marchese Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Relativizing Unfinishedness: Lucretian Textuality and Epicurean Therapy Fabio Tutrone Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
The Fragment as a Form: A Reading of Fragments d’un discours amoureux by Barthes Sylvie Thorel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
Arrhythmic Historiography, Lost Letters and Broken Meanings: Fulgentius’s De aetatibus mundi et hominis Paolo Felice Sacchi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
“This City Will Always Pursue You”: The Impossible End of Rutilius Namatianus’ Return Marco Formisano Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Part IV: Reading Unfinishedness
Finishing Iphigenia in Aulis David Konstan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Seneca’s Phoenissae: In Search of an Ending Stavros Frangoulidis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275
How to Read Hyginus’ Fabulae? Theories and Practices Jacqueline Fabre-Serris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	289
The Rest was not Perfected: Platonic Endings and their Modern Echoes Giulia Sissa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	311
War as a Permanent Civil War: The “Unfinished” History in Pasolini’s Petrolio Francesca Cadel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331
Part V: Searching for Completion
The Missing Conclusion to Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica Andrew Zissos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	353
Speaking Silences: The Incompleteness of Tacitus’ Annals and Gustav Freytag’s Die verlorene Handschrift Bettina Reitz-Joosse Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	383
Putting an Unfinished Novel Back into Motion: A Digital Tool to Create Possible “Second Volumes” of Bouvard et Pécuchet Stéphanie Dord-Crouslé Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	405
List of Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	419
General Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	423
Index of Passages Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	427

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Scholars and students in Classics, Literature and Literature theories
Pages
- Front matter: 11
- Main content: 432
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 6
Keywords: fragmentariness; ancient and modern literature; editorial work; literary theories

eBook

Published: November 6, 2023
ISBN: 9783111340944

Hardcover

Published: November 6, 2023
ISBN: 9783111340791