Chapter III: Invocation and Entreaty The Difference Appears O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger; donot punish me in your wrathFor your arrows have already pierced me;and your hand presses hard againstme. Psalm 38 Throw away thy rod, Throw away thy wrath; O my GodTake the gentle path. George Herbert, “Discipline” The prayer […]
Chapter II: Performance and Prayer The Role of Difference The surprise of otherness is that moment whena new form of ignorance is suddenly activated as an imperative. Barbara Johnson, A World of Difference Performative language, the subject of J. L. Austin’s How To Do Things With Words, appears prominently in the verb structure of the […]
Chapter I: Previous Response The Critical Difference And it ends upNobody’s, there is nothing for any of usExcept that fearful vacillating around the centralQuestion that brings us closer,For better or for worse, for all this time. John Ashbery, Introduction Critical responses to the poem have varied widely. I survey here the most recent and informed […]
Introduction: A Simple Prayer The Complexity of Sappho 1 υἱὲ Ταντάλου, σὲ δ’ ἀντία προτέρων φθέγξομαι Pindar, Olympian I Sappho’s Prayer to Aphrodite (Fragment 1 V. [1] ) holds a special place in Greek Literature. The poem is the only one of Sappho’s which survives complete. [2] Many of the conclusions we draw about Sappho’s […]
Acknowledgments I would first like to express my gratitude to my first teachers of Greek, Leonard Muellner and Mark Davies, without whom, perhaps, none of this would have happened. I am grateful to many people for advice and encouragement throughout the research and writing of this thesis. My thanks go first to Professor Nagy, who […]
Acknowledgments I would first like to express my gratitude to my first teachers of Greek, Leonard Muellner and Mark Davies, without whom, perhaps, none of this would have happened. I am grateful to many people for advice and encouragement throughout the research and writing of this thesis. My thanks go first to Professor Nagy, who […]
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Gathered here are selections from CHS publications pertaining to the songmaking of Sappho. The majority of them have been generated in Classical Inquiries, an online, rapid-publication project devoted to sharing some of the latest thinking on the ancient world with researchers and the general public, authored primarily by Gregory Nagy, Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies. […]
Sports Society and Culture: Exploring Excellence Fourth International Scholars’ SymposiumJuly 6–July 9, 2015Ancient Olympia, Greece The International Olympic Academy (IOA), in cooperation with Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS), is organizing the Fourth International Scholars’ Symposium on “Sports, Society, and Culture” in Ancient Olympia, July 6–9, 2015. As in the past years, the Symposium will host scholars […]