Greek Epic of the Roman Empire: A Cultural History

该项目首次从文化历史的角度对公元1世纪至6世纪之间创作的大量具有挑战性的希腊史诗进行了系统分析。对于自古以来的希腊人来说，史诗是最负盛名的文学形式，是体裁等级的顶峰。通过它，他们阐明了他们对战争、帝国、死亡、宗教、性别、自然秩序、心理和文化认同的概念。鉴于这个时代发生了巨大的变化--罗马作为世界帝国的首领出现，随后转向君士坦丁堡，基督教化，为中世纪欧洲奠定了社会基础--它的史诗提供了宝贵的卷宗，是探索高度博学的文化世界观的无与伦比的机会，这种文化曾一度饱和于遥远过去的文学范式中，并面临着快速变化的未来。鉴于史诗在希腊文化中无可置疑的中心地位，并考虑到古代晚期所发生的历史变化的重要性，缺乏对这一时代史诗的任何概括性、情境性研究是古代文学和文化研究中的一个重大(实际上是最大的)差距。《罗马帝国的希腊史诗》利用这些未被充分利用的材料来探索文化史的核心问题，提出了政治、阶级和人口、宗教、性别、性、文化定义以及与自然世界的关系等问题。这首诗是由什么样的人物创作的，他们的身份和背景是什么，他们是在哪里接受教育的，是什么样的制度因素塑造了他们？史诗如何表达从希腊罗马到基督教宗教世界的转变？它如何探索、促进或挑战性别和性行为的新结构？在这个瞬息万变的世界里，这是一种什么样的希腊身份表达？它如何定位人类与自然环境，尤其是动物的关系？总而言之，这个项目提供了人类主题的第一个圆形肖像，因为它出现在这个庞大而复杂(但意义重大)的文献主体中。该项目通过汇编第一个完整的希腊帝国史诗数据库而成为可能，该数据库收集了大约1000首诗歌、片段和文学、纸质和金石学记录中的参考文献。除了学术出版物，该项目还将出版第一套全面的翻译那个时代的诗歌语料库，由加州大学出版社出版。它将有大量的网络存在，包含供公众使用的材料(包括视频)和用户友好的、可搜索的数据库版本。还将举行一场会议，与艺术史姊妹项目“信仰帝国”共同举行。

This project provides the first systematic analysis, in cultural-historical terms, of the large and challenging corpus of Greek epic poetry composed between the 1st and the 6th centuries CE. Epic was, for Greeks throughout antiquity, the most prestigious literary form, the apex of the hierarchy of genres. Through it they articulated their conceptions of war, empire, mortality, religion, gender, the natural order, psychology and cultural identity. Given the immense transformations that the era in question saw - the emergence of Rome as the head of a world empire, the subsequent shift to Constantinople, Christianisation, the laying of the social foundations for mediaeval Europe - its epic poetry offers an invaluable dossier, an unparalleled opportunity to explore the worldview of a highly erudite culture that was at once saturated in the literary paradigms of the distant past and confronting a rapidly changing future. Given the unquestionable centrality of epic to Greek culture, and given the significance of the historical changes wrought in late antiquity, the absence of any synoptic, contextualised study of the epic of this era is a major (indeed the greatest, we would argue) gap within ancient literary and cultural studies. 'Greek Epic of the Roman Empire' draws on this under-exploited material to explore central issues of cultural history, posing questions of politics, class and demography, religion, gender, sexuality, cultural definition and the relationship with the natural world. What kind of figures composed this poetry, what was their status and background, where were they trained, what kind of institutional factors shaped them? How does epic express the transformation from a Greco-Roman to a Christian religious world? How does it explore, promote, or challenge new constructions of gender and sexuality? What kind of an expression of Greek identity is it within this rapidly changing world? And how does it position humanity in relation to the natural environment, particularly to animals?In sum, this project offers the first rounded portrait of the human subject as it appears in this vast and complex (but hugely significant) body of literature.The project has been made possible by the compilation of the first ever complete database of imperial Greek epic poetry, which has thrown up around 1000 poems, fragments and references in the literary, papyrological and epigraphic records. As well as scholarly publications, the project will also produce the first comprehensive set of translations of the poetic corpus of the era, published by the University of California Press. It will have a substantial web presence, containing materials for public use (including videos) and a user-friendly, searchable version of the database. There will also be a conference, held in common with an art-historical sister project, 'Empires of Faith'.