How people are finding the Campus

Quaint, I'd imagine.

But here's the latest odd search request to catch my eye:

priestly, brain detroit computers

Please comment freely with your twisted psychological profiles and best guesses.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

When something great appears and lasts for some time, we can presuppose a careful training, e.g. among the Greeks. How did so many men among them achieve their freedom?

Educate educators! But first educators must educate themselves. It is for these I write.

Aetas Claudianea

i've been reading some claudian lately. perhaps someday i'll have something intelligent to say about it.

but i wouldn't hold my breath.

in the meantime, i direct your attention to someone who does. here is bret mulligan's review of the recently published Aetas Claudianea. Eine Tagung an der Freien Universität Berlin vom 28. bis 30. Juni 2002, edited by Widu-Wolfgang Ehlers.

mulligan states:

This volume will be required reading for students of Claudian, and offers much of value to scholars of late antique literary culture and the Classical Tradition in general. In their inclusion of extensive references and supplementary material, most contributors appear to be aiming at an audience beyond that of the Claudian specialist, and taken together the twelve contributions in this volume provide a valuable introduction to the current questions and challenges of Claudian scholarship, as well as a useful overview of its bibliography. Of the twelve contributions, six are in German, four in English, and two in Italian.

indeed, there are a couple of essays herein i'm looking forward to reading, especially 'Das Orpheus-Thema in Claudians De raptu Proserpinae' by christine schmitz, in which she examines the function of the prefaces to books 1 and 2 in the rest of the work (a topic in which i'm quite interested myself).

and those interested in the interplay of hellenistic and late antique literature might enjoy isabella gualandri's essay 'Claudian's Greek World: Callimachus'. here is how mr. mulligan describes it:

In "Claudian's Greek World: Callimachus" (pp. 78-95), Isabella Gualandri reassesses the difficult topic of Claudian's use of Greek models, focusing on a few points of apparent contact between Claudian and Callimachus. She demonstrates how allusions to the Hymn to Delos structure the arrival of Mars in In Eutropium and inform the predicted destruction of the Giants in his Greek Gigantomachy. This last reference leads Gualandri to discuss other instances where Claudian exploits similarities between ancient Gallic and contemporary Gothic invaders, in particular the preface to the second book of the In Rufinum, where the anachronistic interest in Delphi is best explained as a reference to the Hymn to Delos's treatment of the Gallic invasion of 279 BCE. Although Gualandri cautions that "nothing conclusive can be inferred from these few examples," she ventures that Claudian's references to Greek models are not allusions -- i.e. aemulatio intended to be recognized by a learned audience -- but simply material "to be freely exploited and exhibited as if they were the result of his own inventio," an "elusive use of his literary models." In this well-argued essay, Gualandri is meticulous in documenting her sources and providing interesting supplementary information. She thoroughly treats other possible sources and avoids the pitfalls of overstatement that often plague the exposition of poetic models.

finally, here is a complete list of the papers included:

Lucio Ceccarelli, "Osservazioni sull'esametro di Claudiano"

Franca Ela Consolino, "Poetry and politics in Claudian's carmina minora 22 and 50"

Siegmar Döpp, "Von Napoleon zu Ludwig XVIII.: Der Claudian-Cento des L.A. Descampe"

Manfred Fuhrmann, "Claudian in der Neuzeit"

Isabella Gualandri, "Claudian's Greek World"

Jacqueline Long, "Claudian and the City: Poetry and Pride of Place"

Jens Michners, "Spott und Ironi in Claudians carmina minora"

Claudio Moreschini, "Paganus pervicacissimus religione e 'filosofia' in Claudiano"

Claudia Schindlerm "Tradition - Transformation - Innovation: Claudians Panegyriken und das Epos"

Peter Lebrecht Schmidt, "Rezeptionsgeschichtliche Erwägungen zur Claudianüberlieferung"

Christine Schmitz, "Das Orpheus-Thema in Claudians De raptu Proserpinae"

Catherine Ware, "Gildo tyrannus: Accusation and Allusion in the Speeches of Roma and Africa"

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

first of all, it's nice to see dennis back again! i was beginning to wonder whether he'd abandoned us for fairer campi. if anyone else is glad to see his return, they are warmly invited to express their delight in the comments.

and now on to our citation for the day--

Classical scholarship as knowledge of the ancient world cannot, of course, last forever; its material is exhaustible. What cannot be exhausted is the perpetually new adjustment of our own age to the classical world, of measuring ourselves against it. If we assign the classicist the task of understanding his own age better by means of the classical world, then his task is a permanent one.--This is the antinomy of classical scholarship. Men have always, in fact, understood the ancient world exclusively in terms of the present--and shall the present now be understood in terms of the ancient world? More precisely: men have explained the classical world to themselves in terms of their own experience; and from what they have acquired of the classical world in this way, they have assessed, evaluated their own experience. Hence experience is clearly an absolute prerequisite for a classicist. Which means: the classicist must first be a man in order to become creative as a classicist...

Greek and Latin spotted on the radio

The other day I heard a caller to the lcoal sports radio station offer big kuh-DOOZ to the host (and yes, kuh-DOOZ rhymes with 'the news'). Never have I heard kudos butchered so badly.

This morning on Howard Stern I briefly heard the gang repeatedly saying, 'Latin gravitas' apparently in mockery of James Lipton.

Now that I can get behind. The man makes a mean iced tea though.

At the moment I'm working on a new thesis which also was not on our earlier poll. Sorry about that. But the good news is that I have under two months to complete a thesis on meter in Aratus and Nicander, and I'm currently convinced that Nicander's Alexipharmaca is the most underappreciated poem in the history of the world of mankind ever. It's--dare I say it?--really really ridiculously good.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

The consistency which is honored in a scholar is pedantry when applied to the Greeks.