2 responses to “Now Available Online | Copies and Models in Horace Odes 4.1 and 4.2, by Gregory Nagy”

1. 

   Elly25

   January 8, 2016 at 1:41 pm

   It is interesting to me that imitation is not only acceptable but supported while in our society it is not. As I write this, though, I think of such the recreative artists of dance and music keeping classical ballet and classical music from fading away. Ever the more modern forms such as Martha Graham Company, the Jose Limon Dance Company carrying dance on, even though if one compares filmed performances of Martha Graham herself with contemporary performances, the differences are quite striking. I wonder what the ancient poets, composers, would say were of our present understandings of their work.

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   1. 

      clafi

      January 11, 2016 at 7:14 am

      Hi Elly! I, too, find myself wondering what the ancient poets would think of our understandings and realizations of their work. Paragraph 5 from professor Nagy’s essay really stuck with me:
      “Mimesis is like Kierkegaard’s repetition. When you re-enact an archetypal action in drama, you imitate those who re-enacted before {415|416} you and who served as your immediate models. But the ultimate model is still the archetypal figure that you are acting out or re-enacting, who is coextensive with the whole line of imitators who had re-enacted the way in which their ultimate model acted, each imitating each one’s predecessor. When it is your turn, your moment to re-enact something in this forward movement of mimesis, you become the ultimate model in that very moment.”

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