What happened when creative biographers took on especially creative subjects in Greek and Roman antiquity? Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity examines how the biographical traditions of ancient poets and artists parallel the creative processes of biographers themselves, both within antiquity and beyond. Each chapter explores a range of biographical material that highlights the complexity of how readers and viewers imagine the lives of ancient creator-figures. Work in the last decades has emphasized the likely fictionality of nearly all of the ancient (...) evidence about the lives of poets, as well as of other artists and intellectuals; this book now sets out to show what we might nevertheless still do with the rich surviving testimony for 'creative lives' - and the evidence that those traditions still shape how we narrate modern lives too. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to familiarize the Polish reader with Poets and the Poetry of Poland, the first extensive anthology of the Polish literature published in English in the United States by Paweł Sobolewski. Particular emphasis was placed on the characteristics of this work, recreating the traces of reception of this work and showing the most important sources on which the author relied. The presented article also points out the importance of Sobolewski’s literary and cultural activity, as he (...) initiated multifaceted, often pioneering projects, becoming one of the leading Polish diaspora activists in the 19th century’s United States, also active in the American community. This paper was partially based on the source materials collected by Mieczysław Haiman at the Polish Museum in America, to which the access was possible thanks to a Kościuszko Foundation scholarship. The historical analysis of the sources based on the descriptive-historical paradigm was adopted as the basic tool. Noteworthy, the Poets and Poetry of Poland was the crown work of Sobolewski’s many-year mission, related to the desire to make Americans familiar with the Polish culture and to present it in representative forms. The anthology, including the translations of the works of 60 authors from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, gave an insight into the multi- faceted recognition of the biographies and literary works of eminent Polish poets, mostly belonging to the times of Romanticism and the Enlightenment. Despite the strong inspiration from Rycharski’s textbook and other sources, the final shape of the volume was influenced by the editor’s personal experiences, his reading preferences and contact with the authors. The selection of works and the structure of the conducted argument reflect the spirit of affirmation for the great tradition created by the first generation of romantics and the significance of the November Uprising, in which Sobolewski took part. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Intertextual Biography in the Rivalry of Cratinus and AristophanesZachary P. BilesMore than a decade ago, Malcolm Heath provided an influential explanation for charges of plagiarism between comic poets when he posited a growing store of ideas that were recycled as quickly as they were invented. As a result, "Anything put on stage in a comedy would become public property and be absorbed into the repertoire, so that all (...) comic poets contributed to it; and all drew on it, although each would aim to give a new and original twist to the material which he borrowed, so that the repertoire constantly evolved. If this was so, then any poet could lay claim to originality... and any rival could make a counterclaim of plagiarism."1 These remarks have important implications for the study of Old Comedy, not least in exposing the irony of such assertions as that of Antiphanes (Poiēsis, fr. 189 K-A), which overstates generic distinctions between tragedy and comedy on the score of originality. Beyond merely acknowledging comedy's essentially adaptive nature, Heath's position suggests that a certain degree of allusiveness was, as it were, built into the genre. Unfortunately there are few opportunities to test the potential insights that follow from Heath's general proposition since the corpus of comic fragments poses so many questions of plot, context, attribution, and-always important for this kind of study-chronology.There is one sequence of plays, however, that has attracted attention since antiquity as an example of comic poets responding to one another and for which valuable insights can still be gained by building on Heath's thesis. In 423 Cratinus took the prize against Aristophanes' Clouds with Pytine, a play in which Cratinus boldly portrayed himself as the hero while borrowing heavily from Aristophanes' caricature of him in Knights the previous year. While interest in the relationship of these plays has been renewed in recent years, the convergence of issues pertaining to adaptation, intertextuality, and rivalry has not been fully explored. Besides discussing these ideas as they relate to Knights and [End Page 169] Pytine, I shall extend the thread of artistic borrowing at either end, first by positing a stage autobiography of Cratinus that both predates and inspired Knights, and then by tracing elements of intertextuality between Wasps and Pytine. Generally speaking Heath's model proves to be of great value; however, my study makes an important modification by treating competition as a vital aspect of comic poetry.2 The intertextuality of these plays primarily depends on poetic biography, and the notion of competition is central to my understanding of stage biography as comic poets employed it either to assert their own superiority or malign their rivals. After examining the biographical interplay in the rivalry of Cratinus and Aristophanes, I end by applying the intertextual model more generally to Wasps, a play that advertises itself as a competitive response and whose intertextual relationship with Pytine can be viewed as a function of competitive strategy.IThe trail of evidence begins with a scholion on Knights 400. Commenting on the chorus's elusive response to Cleon ("If I don't despise you, may I become a blanket in Cratinus' house!"), the scholiast writes:(= Pytine test. ii K-A)3 [End Page 170]Certain errors about Cratinus' retirement aside,4 the scholiast shows himself to be a reliable witness to the play by his knowledge of the plot and ability to cite the text in the continuation of his commentary (fr. 193). Thus, with the exception of treating the more fully developed caricature of Cratinus as a drunk in the Knights parabasis as the actual source of inspiration for his self-portrayal in Pytine, generations of scholars have followed the scholiast's characterization of Pytine as a redemptive play, however exaggerated this biographical (mis)representation may have been in both plays. Two recent studies have raised objections to the traditional understanding of Knights and Pytine. Troubled by a certain feeling of allusiveness in the jokes about Cratinus in Knights and Acharnians, Keith Sidwell hypothesizes a source for the audience's familiarity with details of Cratinus' life by arguing that his stage "biography " was not an Aristophanic... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading BiographyMichael Benton (bio)Biographer, Biography, and the ReaderBiography is a hybrid. It is history crossed with narrative. The biographer has to present the available facts of the life yet shape their arbitrariness, untidiness, and incompleteness into an engaging whole. The readerly appeal lies in the prospect both of gaining documentary information, scrupulously researched and plausibly interpreted, and of experiencing the aesthetic pleasure of reading a well-made work of (...) art with a continuous life story and a satisfying closure. "In the family of literature," one of its most respected practitioners asserts, "biography seems to be the product of a strange coupling between old-fashioned history and the traditional novel."1 The invitation of biography is thus a dualistic one; the aesthetic experience it offers stems from the twofoldness of its nature and from the stance that this imposes upon the reader. Literary biographies of poets and novelists offer a particularly fruitful area of study since their subjects have a special concern for aesthetic experience and the biographers' main interest lies in the relationship between the life and the works. Though much of what follows has a wider application, the focus of this article is on biographies of writers. By triangulating the roles of the biographer, the biographee within the biographical text, and the reader we can conceptualize the elements that make up the invitation of the genre.First, the biographer. Richard Holmes characterizes the process he experiences with two keywords: it is a "pursuit" and it is a "haunting." They are two sides of the same phenomenon. The pursuit is a "tracking of the physical trail of someone's path through the past, a following of footsteps," an effort "to write about the pursuit of that fleeting figure in such a way as to bring it alive in the present."2 The haunting occurs when this revivification succeeds and the biographee is brought imaginatively alive. Then the biographer turns from pursuer to pursued. While the subject does not take [End Page 77] him over, as it might in some Gothic fantasy, it does exercise the power of the past upon the present and haunt the biographer's imagination. Holmes goes on to explain the two main elements as "closely entwined strands":The first is the gathering of factual materials, the assembling in chronological order of a man's "journey" through the world—the actions, the words, the recorded thoughts, the places and faces through which he moved: the "life and letters." The second is the creation of a fictional or imaginary relationship between the biographer and his subject; not merely a "point of view" or an "interpretation," but a continuous living dialogue between the two... It is fictional, imaginary, because of course the subject cannot really, literally, talk back; but the biographer must come to act and think of his subject as if he can.3Not every biographer would necessarily subscribe to this particular description, but there is ample evidence in the recent spate of books about the genre4 that the biographer's capacity for imaginative empathy is continuously interacting with the verifiable historical data. The present operates upon the past in other ways, too. Earlier biographers who are more or less contemporary with their subjects (for example, Boswell, Forster, Mrs. Gaskell)5 stand in different relationships with them and the available data about them compared with present-day biographers who may inherit a whole bibliography of "lives" laid down in stratified layers on top of the life they are trying to recover. The modern reader, like the modern biographer, has to be a literary archaeologist. Dickens's "lives," for example, are constructed on a bedrock of his friend Forster's biography and on the novelist's own writings, neither of which subsequent biographers can afford to ignore. Later "lives" also have to be sifted through: our inherited Dickens is compounded from a series of accounts from, among a host of others, the Victorian memoirs of his daughter6 and his reading manager,7 via Edwardian enthusiasts8 and 1930s revelations about Dickens's private life,9 to those of modern academics and writers in our own time.10 In such cases, bringing the subject... (shrink)

Cette biographie de référence éclaire d'un jour nouveau tout un pan de la vie intellectuelle du XXe siècle, celui de ces universitaires juifs allemands obligés de fuir le IIIe Reich et qui, d'étape en étape, finirent par trouver refuge aux Etats-Unis. Le livre associe la présentation des grandes étapes de la pensée et de l'œuvre de Hannah Arendt aux événements historiques qui la sollicitent et au tableau des amitiés et des cercles successifs. Si la liaison qu'elle eut brièvement au début (...) des années 30 avec Heidegger est désormais bien connue, d'autres aspects de son existence, pourtant du plus haut intérêt, le sont moins : son rapprochement avec le sionisme sous l'égide de Kurt Blumenfeld avant et pendant la guerre, son mariage avec Günther Stern, puis avec Heinrich Blücher, sa longue amitié aux Etats-Unis avec la romancière Mary McCarthy ou avec le poète W.H. Auden. Polémiste redoutable et critique cinglante, constante dans ses fidélités, et en premier lieu dans sa relation avec cette grande conscience allemande que fut Karl Jaspers, Arendt a traversé tous les débats du siècle, sans jamais céder ni sur son indépendance d'esprit ni sur sa lucidité : face au totalitarisme, dont elle forge le concept, mais aussi face au racisme et aux mouvements pour les droits civils aux Etats-Unis, face à la création de l'Etat d'Israël et au devenir du sionisme, face à l'engagement américain dans la guerre du Vietnam, face à la révolte de la jeunesse des années 60. Ne s'abandonnant jamais à la tentation aristocratique du retrait, elle accomplit une œuvre de pensée sans avoir besoin de décrier le monde, mais en prônant l'amour de la réalité, donnant ainsi l'image rare d'une vie de penseur à la hauteur de ses accomplissements spéculatifs. Indisponible depuis une dizaine d'années, cet ouvrage a été mis à jour et enrichi d'une nouvelle préface de l'auteur. (shrink)

L'A. établit la biographie de Jean le Géomètre en se référant à ses poèmes et à ses épigrammes. Ces poèmes à Basile le Nothos apportent des éclaircissements sur sa carrière comme poète lauréat et sur ses attachements politiques. Il a notamment été renvoyé du service militaire juste après 985 à cause de son attachement à la faction de Basile le Nothos. Ces poèmes à Psenas prouvent indirectement qu'il a vécu au monastère de Kyros vers la fin de sa vie.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reframing Baudelaire: Literary History, Biography, Postcolonial Theory, and Vernacular LanguagesFrançoise Lionnet* (bio)In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf quips: “History is too much about wars; biography too much about great men;” literary history, she might have added, is too much about sons murdering their fathers. Canonical readings of the canon have often insisted on the vaguely Freudian (if not biblical) model of literary creation susceptible both (...) to “anxieties of influence” and to creative revisions imposed by strong misreadings. Criticism has followed the same reactive pattern in order to clear new ground for further research: the debate between “traditionalists” and proponents of “cultural studies” all but repeats this familiar and combative dialectic. Between formalist and sociopolitical readings, French texts have been mined by many different critical trends; but the perspectives that do not fit neatly into one or the other of these agonistic moves tend to be left out. Dominick LaCapra has suggested that “one issue for readers today is whether a different, ‘noncanonical’ reading of the canon, which resists symbolic resolutions as well as narrowly formalistic interpretations, may be one force in reopening texts to the[ir] broader sociopolitical effects” [731].In the case of Baudelaire, the way to do this “noncanonical” reading might well be to go back to a discursive field which includes biography and oral histories, and to resist the temptation either to eulogize the innovations of the poet of modernity or to denounce the patent racism of his images. The challenge today is to return to the scene of writing and the conditions of production of the early poetry—in other words, to look at the text from outside of conventional literary, critical or cultural history, to reclaim it for our side, that of a more global francophonie. To do so might mean to map out once again the contested terrain of culturally and politically sensitive readings such as the ones Christopher Miller and Gayatri Spivak claim to do. Their readings, however, do not take into account the residual cultural element of the poetry, that is, the vernacular language it appropriates. This language is all but buried beneath the emergent theoretical practices of postcolonial criticism and its vaguely nationalist agendas. 1 Critics have tended to look for [End Page 63] symbolic resolutions and to settle cultural scores at the expense of historical and geographical specificity, despite claims to the contrary.The facts of Baudelaire’s youthful travels in the Indian Ocean have remained relatively obscure. While doing research in the islands of Mauritius and Réunion on two separate occasions during the past few years, I came across written documents and watercolors that helped me reconstruct the historical and visual contexts that appear to have been Baudelaire’s in 1841. By re-examining the criticisms that have been lodged against the exoticizing rhetoric of his poetry, I want to foreground the links between the Creole culture with which Baudelaire became familiar and the now canonical texts he produced. These links can allow us to bypass the sterile opposition between “literary studies” and “cultural studies” or between aesthetics and politics; they demonstrate the urgency of re-visioning the canon not just from the perspectives of its margins, but as an important source of muted cultural knowledge. The questions with which I begin, then, are the following: where did Baudelaire actually go on his travels in 1841? and why does this matter to the field of French studies?Il faut en finir avec la légende de l’Inde parcourue par Baudelaire. Elle était séduisante, Gautier l’a adoptée, Banville ne l’a pas négligée.... Mais la vérité vraie est que Baudelaire, embarqué malgré lui, brûla la politesse à l’Inde.... Peut-être Baudelaire abandonnait-il complaisamment au commun public ces bruits de longues pérégrinations en pays fabuleux, parce qu’il en tirait, avec des couleurs de mystère, l’air de revenir de loin. Dans tous les cas, il ne nous parlait jamais de ces voyages. A peine, à son retour, nous dit-il quelques mots d’une station dans l’île Maurice ou l’île Bourbon. 2[It is time to put a stop to... (shrink)

Inconsistent and contradictory accounts of Terence’s death conclude his biography in Suetonius’ De Viris Illustribus. Many of these narratives originated in the work of scholar-poets active at the end of the second century b.c.e. This article shows that the numerous versions of his death are interpretations of the formation of his canon from the retrospective viewpoint of his late second-century readers. These death scenes dramatize the construction of Terence’s literary legacy in its reception. Furthermore, they elucidate the role that (...) the nascent genre of Roman literary biography played in enacting and articulating literary-critical debates among Terence’s readers. (shrink)

Columbanus, not to be confused with his near-contemporary Columba of Iona, was a towering figure in the religious and political life of Europe in the Dark Ages. In this lively biography of the saint, Carol Richards evokes the violent and unstable age that laid the foundations for the achievements of the Middle Ages.

In a recent article, P.G. Christiansen has strenuously questioned the communis opinio that Claudian was an immigrant from the Greek-speaking eastern Empire. Although Christiansen injects a healthy skepticism into the debate about Claudian's biography, his arguments in favor of Claudian being a native Latin speaker are flawed or unpersuasive. The only relevant external evidence indicates that in the centuries after Claudian's death he was considered an Egyptian. The evidence in Claudian's poems – the unique passing reference to Nilus noster (...) in carm. min. 19, the invocation the symbols of Egypt at the end of carm. min. 22, and Claudian's claim in carm. min. 41 that his first public Latin composition occured in 395 c.e. – suggest an eastern origin. The example of the inscription to Cronius Eusebius suggests that the bilingualism in the inscription to Claudian could point to a personal connection with Greek. Since the positive case for a western origin can be neither supported on linguistic or textual grounds, and recent research has shown that high levels of Latinity were possible for contemporary authors in the eastern Empire, the case for a western origin is decisively weaker than that supporting an origin in Egypt. (shrink)

L'aventure de Jacques et Raîssa Maritain constitue un parcours unique par son ampleur et son rayonnement. Centre de gravité de la vie spirituelle et littéraire pendant l'entre-deux-guerres, point de ralliement des générations perdues et refuge des poètes maudits, le couple tissa autour de lui le réseau d'influence le plus riche et foisonnant de l'histoire de ce siècle. Disciples de Bergson et de Léon Bloy, confidents de François Mauriac, de julien Green et de Jean Cocteau, amis de Péguy, de Mounier et (...) de Paul VI, et jetant entre les milieux littéraires, artistiques et catholiques d'invisibles passerelles, Jacques et Raïssa Maritain menèrent dans le même temps une expérience de vie spirituelle fascinante. Convertis à vingt ans, ils se firent tous deux messagers de Dieu sur les routes du monde, mendiants du Ciel au nom d'un nouvel humanisme, et ils s'engagèrent ensemble dans les combats essentiels de leur temps pour faire prévaloir en tous lieux la primauté du spirituel. On connaît l'œuvre philosophique considérable laissée par Jacques Maritain, qui garde une audience internationale. Mais cette première biographie, qui s'appuie entre autre sur une importante correspondance inédite, révèle la trame même d'une réflexion qui touche aux multiples domaine de la connaissance : une destinée d'errance et d'exil, de grandes amitiés et de combats souvent âpres contre l'injustice et les dérives du monde moderne, notamment celles de l'Eglise. C'est aussi la face invisible et secrète de la vie d'un couple qui nous est ici dévoilée. Unis par un amour fou et liés par un vœu de chasteté, les Maritainlivrèrent leur existence à Dieu sans partage, au prix pour Raïssa de "la plus dure mort à soi-même" et, pour tous les deux, d'une bouleversante solitude. (shrink)

Grown up as versatile people, Ottoman intellectuals had holistic views towards science, art and literature, and wrote in a variety of disciplines. It was not uncommon for a mathematician to write in philosophy, for a ḥadīth (report of the words and deeds of the Prophet) scholar to write history books, for a statesman to be busy with calligraphy or for a Shaykh al-Islām (the highest ranking Islamic legal authority) to have a “Dīwān” (a collection of poems). However, possibly due to (...) specialization-based scientific understanding of modern researchers, one side of these people generally came to the fore and some capabilities of them remained unknown. Grown up in Istanbul, capital town of Ottoman Empire, in late 16th and early 17th centuries, Okchuzāde Mehmed Shāhī was also one of these personalities called “hezār-fan” (polymath). Mehmed Shāhī served in top level offices of the State, was busy with art and literature, and became known for inshāʾ (composition) kind of works written with elaborate prose. Mehmed Shāhī earned a deserved fame with these capabilities and he was also a poet. Indeed, due to poems he wrote in his early ages, he was noticed by some biography writers about poets and his poems were mentioned in some anthologies. In addition to poetry anthologies, he had some classical works, and some couplets, quatrains and verses included in his prose works. In the present study, a collection and evaluation of poems by Mehmed Shāhī were presented.Summary: Ottoman statesman Okchuzāde Mehmed Shāhī was born in 1562 AD (970 AH) in Istanbul. He was son of Okchuzāde Mehmed Pasha (d. 995 AH/1587 AD) and served as Kātib (scribe), Defterdār (treasurer), Reīs-ul-kuttāb (chief of the scribes), Governor General of Cyprus and Aleppo. His real name was Mehmed, but he was mentioned in different sources by names such as Mehmed Bey, Mehmed Shāh, Mehmed Shāhī, Mir Mehmed Shāhī and Okchuzāde Mehmed Shāhī. Starting at a young age, he was well educated in madrasah (college). With his vibrant character and superior genius, he came to the forefront among his peers. He was educated under the supervision of Māʿlūlzāde Nakīb Efendi (d. 993 AH/1585 AD) and graduated in 988 AH/1580 AD at the age of 18. When Nakīb Efendi became Shaykh al-Islām in the same year, he started his official duty as Dīwān-ı Humāyūn (imperial council) secretary. With the duty of Executive Assistant, he became the secretary of Damad İbrahim Pasha who started to his office in 1004 AH/1596 AD. He worked under the patronage of the Pasha until Pasha’s death in 1010 AH/1601 AD. Mehmed Shāhī succeeded Musa Chelebi as Reīs-ul-kuttāb and Basdefterdar (chief treasurer) in 1005 AH/1596 AD, and was appointed as title deed and cadastre director in 1006 AH/1597 AD. However, he was dismissed from this duty and was included among the officials to join military campaign. He was prosecuted and tried for imprisonment for the accusation of coming to Istanbul without permission. He succeeded Hamza Pasha as Nishanci (high-ranking bureaucrat) in 1007 AH/1599 AD and was assigned to military campaign. Mehmed Shāhī was dismissed from his duty in 1008 AH/1600 AD. Although he was reappointed to his duty in the same year, he was dismissed again in 1010 AH/1601 AD. While Hamza Pasha was reappointed to his office, Mehmed Shāhī was not assigned to any duty. He succeeded Murad Efendi as the Defterdar of Egypt in 1013 AH/1605 AD. After this duty, one of the vassal Sanjak (administrative district) Beyliks (principalities) in Egypt was given to him. When vassal Sanjak Beyliks were abolished by Kara Mehmed Pasha, Beylerbeyi (governor) of Egypt, in 1016 AH/1608 AD, he returned to Istanbul. He was not appointed to an office for a long time. In 1029 AH/1620 AD, he was appointed as title deed and cadastre director in 1029 AH/1620 AD, and became Nishanci again in 1030 AH/1621 AD. He served in military campaign to Poland, but was dismissed from this duty during the campaign. He was appointed as Nishanci for the fifth time during the second reign of Sultan Mustafa (1622-1623). He was dismissed in 1033 AH/1624 AD and retired. In early 1039 AH/1630 AD, he died at the age of 69 in Istanbul. His tomb is near Ekmekchioghlu tomb in the vicinity of Sunbul Efendi.What is known about his family is limited to his son named Vakʿi Ahmed Efendi (d. 1060 AH/1650 AD). Ahmet Efendi learned Naskh, Thuluth and tevkīʿi types of calligraphy styles from his father. He served as anthology writer for Shaykh al-Islām Bahāī Efendi. He died in 1060 AH/1650 AD when he was serving as teacher in Sulaymaniyah Madrasah. His tomb is around Shaykh Vefa tomb.In addition to his administrative duties, Mehmed Shāhī was also interested in poetry, prose, calligraphy, mysticism, ḥadīth and tafsīr (exegesis). Possibly also due to his dismissal of duties many times in his life, he produced many works. Among them are Aḥsan al-ḥadīth, an-Naẓm al-mubīn fī āyāt al-erbaʿīn, al-Maqām al-Maḥmūd, Tarjuma-i Tuḥfa as-ṣalavāt, Jāmiʿ al-ghāyāt, Mukhtār al-akhyār, Qānūn-i Jadīd-i Arāḍi, Munsheat ve Dīwān. Famed for his prose works, the author was also a poet. With his couplets which he wrote under pseudonym of Zaynī, he managed to get on the anthology of Kınalızāde at his twenties. He was celebrated with the expression of “Arrow of word from his bow of soul has reached the target of approval from masters; he is at a young age (at his twenties)”. Subsequently adopting pseudonym of Shāhī, the poet had some poems published within the works of Beyānī, Nevʿizāde and Mustaqimzāde as well as within his own prose works. Mustaqimzāde even mentioned that Mehmed Shāhī had a dīwān. Nevertheless, this work of him has not been found yet. A total of 30 poetry works of Mehmed Shāhī were found in various sources, except for his translations of 40 ḥadīth and 40 Qur’ān verses written in poetry. Of his 30 poetry works, 26 were written in Turkish and 4 in Persian. Various sections of ʿarūḍ (meter) were used in these works written as couplets, quatrains and verses. It could be stated that his poems rich in Persian and Arabic words had a rich rhyme frame. In his poetry works in which religious, literary, historical, legendary and mysticism themes were worked, concepts and figures such as Allah, the Lord, Messiah, Messenger, Risālet (messengership), intercession, Kāfūr al-Ikhshīdī (966-968), Mustaʿsim (d. 656 AH/1258 AD), Ibn Alkamī (d. 656 AH/1258 AD), Naṣīr-i Tūsī (d. 672 AH/1274 AD), Jamshīd, Keyumars, Uftade, Hudāyī, Majūsī, Kizilbash, Bayramī and muftī (jurist capable of giving a formal legal opinion). His poems were about intercession demand from the Messenger (PBUH), sin of serving to Persian, importance of an invention, praise of Uftade Sultan (d. 988 AH/1580 AD), effect of prayer, fate of administrator favoring his relatives, futility of envying the rich, importance of fighting with Zoroastrian, benefits of exhibition of sorrow, value of skillful people, resembling of the world to a bride with a thousand grooms, beauty of eloquence, ignominy of leaving chastity for lust, asking for forgiveness for sins, talent of understanding the words, not giving quarter to enemies, praise of Hz.ʿUmar, humbleness, value of lack of worldly things, sufferance due to the beauty of the beautiful, needing not to wonder why the beloved one is far away, evil of protecting the snot, richness of Arabic language, deeds of Anatolian fāḍils (virtuous), importance of endeavor in succeeding the closeness to God and respectability of ʿAzīz Maḥmūd Hudāyī (d. 1038 AH/1628 AD). Okchuzāde Mehmed Shāhī was an Ottoman statesman who also earned a well-deserved fame for his works written in inshāʾ (composition) genre of elaborate prose. In addition, he also had poetry works. Praised for the poems which he wrote in his early ages by anthology writers who included his poems in their anthologies, the poet also had some couplets and quatrains scattered among his own prose works. His poems in the form of couplets and quatrains within abovementioned works mostly were about religious, literary, legendary, historical and mysticism themes.Mehmed Shāhī was knowledgeable in tafsīr, ḥadīth, mysticism and calligraphy, and had good levels of Arabic and Persian. Writing poems in Persian, Mehmed Shāhī was decorated his prose works with Arabic expressions such as Qur’ān verses, ḥadīths and proverbs. It could be stated that such decorations made the language of his poems more difficult. Nevertheless, his poems are plainer and easier compared to his prose works. The poet who also had lyrical poems generally preferred ḥikamī (sapiential) style and wrote genres such as munacaat (prayer to God), shafaatnāme (intercession epistles), historical quatrain, medhiye (panegyric) and hicviye (epigram). His poems in anthologies were lyrical, those in Aḥsan al-ḥadīth and an-Naẓm al-mubīn were didactical and those in Munsheat were epic. Based on an evaluation of these poems, it could be stated that he was a poet with a style, though not a poet of first class. (shrink)

This book provides the first in-depth exploration of the importance of music for Ludwig Wittgenstein’s life and work. Wittgenstein’s remarks on music are essential for understanding his philosophy: they are on the nature of musical understanding, the relation of music to language, the concepts of representation and expression, on melody, irony and aspect-perception, and, on the great composers belonging to the Austrian-German tradition. Biography and philosophy, this work suggests that Wittgenstein was a composer of philosophy who used the musical (...) form as a blueprint for his own writing and thought. For Wittgenstein music is not alone, but connects and resonates with our cultural forms of life. His relation to composers, especially to Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler, enables Wittgenstein to address the question of how to do philosophy and compose music in the breakdown of tradition. Unlike his conservative musical sensibility, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is open to musical experiments. Reflecting on his remarks on music makes it possible to compare the therapeutic aim of his philosophical activity with that of music, and thus notice affinities between Wittgenstein and John Cage. Béla Szabados has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Calgary and is professor of philosophy at the University of Regina. His publications include Wittgenstein Reads Weininger (2004), Wittgenstein at the Movies (2011) and Wittgenstein on Race, Gender, and Cultural Identity: Philosophy as a Personal Endeavour (2010). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Timothée de Milet: le poète et le musicien by Gérard LambinPauline A. LeVenGérard Lambin. Timothée de Milet: le poète et le musicien. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2013. 212pp. Paper, €16.The image on the cover of Gérard Lambin’s monograph, Timothée de Milet: le poète et le musicien, is a Moreau painting entitled “Dead Poet Carried by a Centaur.” This illustration can be regarded as a programmatic statement for (...) the claim made on the jacket: to make the late fifth-century b.c.e. lyricist, Timotheus of Miletus, come out of the shadows by “offer[ing] the most complete synthesis about an author who had remained unknown for a long time and set[ting] him in his poetic and musical universe.” The book is the first monograph in French devoted exclusively to Timotheus and the first original publication in French on the topic since 1904 (the year that saw a flurry of articles in the wake of the discovery of the papyrus of Timotheus’ Persians in 1903 and the publication of its editio princeps by Wilamowitz). Lambin’s study is composed of two parts: the first presents aspects of the biography of Timotheus and features of the so-called “New Music”; the second describes Timotheus’ poetic and musical output. While sections of the second part offer some of the most sensitive and refreshing pieces of literary criticism I have read on Timotheus’ poetry, the first part, and especially the first chapter, is much less satisfying, as one would wish to see Lambin engage more with methodological problems.“The Man and his Oeuvre” (chap. 1) sounds at first deliciously quaint: it opens with the Suda entry devoted to Timotheus and continues with a compilation of ancient testimonies about the poet (most of them available in the testimonia part of the fifth volume of Campbell’s Loeb edition of Greek Lyric Poetry). Lambin presents a dossier of biographical snippets plucked from ancient authors ranging from Timotheus’ fifth-century b.c.e. contemporaries (Pherecrates) to fourth-century c.e. authors (Themistius), and evaluates their verisimilitude, without clearly defining his criteria for adoption or rejection. The whole chapter synthesizes these short extracts (with accessible and elegant translations) into [End Page 361] a complete, cohesive account of the life of the poet and the era he lived in. The narrative gets particularly vivid at times, and the reader is pleasantly led to fantasize about the world of Timotheus: “protected, admired, rid of all material care, Timotheus must have known in Pella one of the happiest periods of his life, far from the conservatism of a certain elite, for whom the New Music represented everything that was bad about democracy, but also far from the cat-calls and jokes from an Athenian public too quick to mock him” (13). It is clear that Lambin likes his author and wants to provide the reader with a vibrant picture of a flesh-and-bones poet.But once the charm of the historical fiction wears out, Lambin’s cursory analysis of the testimonia is likely to frustrate readers trained to regard ancient “biographical” notices with a healthy dose of skepticism. Take the case of the anecdote from Plutarch (14–15), describing the relationship between Timotheus and King Archelaos: “As Timotheus, the citharode, who had received less than he had hoped, reproached [Archelaos] openly and alluded to the situation by singing the following line: ‘you promise (aineis) earth-born silver,’ Archelos replied ‘and you ask’ (aiteis) for it.” Lambin (deftly translating the pun in Greek with the paronomasia promets / promeuts) comments on the contrast between the situation of Timotheus and that of poets who lived “before the Muse, as Pindar says, became mercenary.” The vague reference to the Pindaric expression is not helpful, however, as it oversimplifies the issue by assimilating two different times and sets of economic conditions (Pindar’s, composing for private patrons, and Timotheus’, composing for public competitions or communities). Moreover, no interpretation is given of the way Plutarch engages with the anecdotal topos of the poet’s relationship with money: one only has to think about the many anecdotes about the cheapskate... (shrink)

Owen Barfield--philosopher, author, poet, and critic--was a founding member of the Inklings, the private Oxford society that included the leading literary figures C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. Lewis, who was greatly affected by Barfield during their long friendship, wrote of their many heated debates: "I think he changed me a good deal more than I him." Simon Blaxland-de Lange's biography (the first to be published on Owen Barfield) was written with the active cooperation of Barfield himself who, (...) before his death in 1997, gave numerous interviews to the author and shared many of his papers and manuscripts. The fruit of this collaboration is a book that penetrates deeply into the life and thought of one of the most important figures of the twentieth century. It studies two pf Barfield's influences--the Romantic poet Coleridge and the philosopher Rudolf Steiner--and elaborates on his profound personal connection with C.S. Lewis. This biography also features a sketch in his own words (based on interviews with the author), describing Barfield's strong relationship with North America and his two professions as lawyer and writer. This updated edition features important new material, including Owen Barfield's own "Psychography" (1948) and four pages of color plates. (shrink)

The main theme of the proposed paper concerns the professional training and artistic activity of Theodor Vasilescu, choreographer and dancer, specialized in folk dance, with a rich international activity during the communist regime. The analysis will focus on illustrating how the artist’s biography was influenced by a new trend in the satellite states of the U.R.S.S., namely that of transforming traditional dance into art with a political substratum. Also, the main thread of the article will consist in revealing the (...) specific type of relationship between the artist and the regime, dominated by a permanent awareness of the mutual benefits of this partnership: for the dancer Theodor Vasilescu it was the chance to develop a successful career, which for the propaganda apparatus implied a strong image campaign for Romania, abroad. Regarding the temporal framework, the analyzed period will focus on the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu, 1965-1989, relevant in Theodor Vasilescu’s career path, as well as in the dissemination of his work results. There are three important aspects that will be analyzed in this article: first, the recovery of an important cultural trend in Romanian history, when, through the influence on the Soviet chain, folklore and traditional dance became an art form strongly subsumed to an ideology. This aspect led to the foundation of many Folk Ensembles with a specific type of artistic manifestations, including folk dance. At the same time, it will be illustrated how the regime was involved in financing and promoting this type of dance, by including it in the development of the most important national performances, by encouraging research in this field and creating professional opportunities through training and also by organizing an International Folklore Festival, “Romania 69”. This approach definitively changed the professional career of Theodor Vasilescu. The last aspect consists in presenting the international career of the choreographer, as a direct result of the increased interest that the communist regime had in promoting Romania’s image abroad. This made the Romanian folk dance very popular in countries such as Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Germany. Also, the frequent tournaments con-tributed to the increase of the Securitate’s interest in his daily activity. The main categories of sources for documentation will consist of: my personal archive which contains two interviews with Theodor Vasilescu, documents in the funds and collections of the National Archives of Romania (The Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, Propaganda and Agitation Section, Organizational Section), also those of the National Council for Studying the Securitate Archives. (shrink)

This article argues that it was not only physical borders that challenged people’s biographies in the 20th century, but also shifts in ideology, discourse and predominant languages. I shall explore the biography of a man called Cornel, a native of Bukovina who was a communist cultural official in Romania’s capital Bucharest in the 1960s and who became a priest in the 1970s. I shall show that not only obvious breaks such as the beginning and end of communist rule, but (...) ideological shifts too within Romanian communism prompted Cornel to thoroughly reassess himself. For Cornel, it was the ‘mini-cultural revolution’ of 1971 under the rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu that quickly convinced him to leave his job at the Romanian Ministry of Culture and reinvent himself as an Orthodox priest. But was his self-reinvention successful? A thorough analysis of his biography shows that his linguistic biography—oscillating between Romanian, Ukrainian and Russian—contains crucial elements of productive adaptation and continuity that enabled him repeatedly and successfully to circumvent borders imposed by newly emerging policies. His “third” identity as a writer has given him continuity and self-assurance. (shrink)

"Witness through holiness of life" is a phrase often used in theological texts. This study analyses the origin of this concept and identifies a series of reference points in its intellectual biography in Romanian theology (with special emphasis on the developments brought about by mission theologians from Cluj-Napoca). The two final sections try to enlarge upon the reflection on the witness through the holiness of life by considering the phrase in a biblical and spiritual context.

In the 4th century B.C., philosophers began to write not only philosophical texts, but also biographical ones. As biographers, they often presented members of their own schools as the epitome of their ideals, or tried to prove that the followers of others lived in ways inconsistent with their own doctrines, which the writers thereby hoped to show were ultimately unrealizable. Other biographies contained chapters engaging in doxographical or more properly philosophical discussions. Even when the philosopher-biographers' attention turned to the lives (...) of politicians and poets, they would find occasions to introduce their philosophical concerns. This whole genre of Greek biography, then, is an rich source of commentary on the philosophical doctrines current in Antiquity. The papers collected in this volume explore the many ways in which philosophy was incorporated into such texts, as well as how the genre was used as a means of philosophical instruction, discussion and polemics. They analyze texts from the 4th century B.C. to the 6th century A.D., some belonging to the best-known examples of the genre, and others being virtually unknown to most students of Antiquity. The volume contains studies of, among others, Dicaearchus, Timaeus, Philodemus, Plutarch, Lucian, Iamblichus, Philostratus, Eunapius and the anonymous Prolegomena to Plato's Philosophy. (shrink)

The myths of Plato.--A great mystic: Plotinus.--Dante as a spiritual teacher.--Wordsworth: seer and patriot.--Browning's portraits of women.

Perhaps no philosopher is more of a conundrum than Nietzsche, the solitary rebel, poet, wayfarer, anti-revolutionary Aufklärer and theorist of aristocratic radicalism. His accusers identify in his 'superman' the origins of Nazism, and thus issue an irrevocable condemnation; his defenders pursue a hermeneutics of innocence founded ultimately in allegory. In a work that constitutes the most important contribution to Nietzschean studies in recent decades, Domenico Losurdo instead pursues a less reductive strategy. Taking literally the ruthless implications of Nietzsche's anti-democratic thinking (...) - his celebration of slavery, of war and colonial expansion, and eugenics - he nevertheless refuses to treat these from the perspective of the mid-twentieth century. In doing so, he restores Nietzsche's works to their complex nineteenth-century context, and presents a more compelling account of the importance of Nietzsche as philosopher than can be expected from his many contemporary apologists. (shrink)

This article introduces the little-known humanist Pompeo Pazzaglia of Bologna. Drawing on the evidence of two collections of his works preserved in miscellaneous manuscripts, it not only reconstructs his biography, but also showcases a selection of his Neo-Latin poems, published and translated here for the first time. Moreover, it publishes some letters and writings which provide new information about book history as well as social, cultural and political events in mid-fifteenth-century Italy, especially in the ambit of Pomponio Leto’s Roman (...) Academy, the papal curia and the court of Naples. Pompeo’s previously unstudied writings yield unique insights into such diverse subjects as the decoration and symbolism of the Roman Pantheon and the Palazzo di San Marco, the marriage of Ippolita Maria Sforza and King Ferrante in Naples, the death of Jacopo Piccinino and the fall of Negroponte to the Ottomans. This study therefore makes a valuable contribution to scholarship on early Renaissance humanism in Rome and Aragonese Naples. (shrink)

This article discusses the influence that Schopenhauer’s thought had on Mihai Eminescu’s work with reference to the idea of “pessimism.” It also considers Schopenhauer’s influence on Romanian philosophy and literature at the end of the nineteenth century. We shall examine Eminescu’s alleged “Schopenhauerian pessimism,” considering firstly “pessimism” as a part of Eminescu’s “myth.” Secondly, we shall cover the critical reception of Eminescu’s “Schopenhauerian pessimism,” discussing the existing literary and philosophical scholarship. Finding that there are issues for debate regarding Schopenhauer’s (...) alleged influence upon Eminescu, we argue that Eminescu’s “Schopenhauerian pessimism” may be a “legend.” The article examines the connection between Eminescu and one of Schopenhauer’s most influential followers, Eduard von Hartmann. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the early poetry of Nikolai Klyuev—its social and political motives are studied in the context of the poet’s biography and in terms of the essay Modern Slavery, written by Hugues-Félicité Robert de Lamennais, the French Catholic philosopher and forerunner of social Christianity. This paper identifies two stages in Klyuev’s assimilation of the philosophy of social Christianity. Klyuev’s poetry initially reproduced the main message of Lamennais’s essay—the rejection of “slavery” as a “heritage” by recognizing the human dignity (...) of “today’s slave” and rebelling against the existing socio-historical tradition. In the second stage, the most important categories of Lamennais’s works—brotherhood, cooperation and sacrifice—find their full meaning in Klyuev’s poems. Work “for brethren’s sake” becomes a form of co-operation with God, while experiencing severities and hardships on the revolutionary path is a form of spiritual co-crucifixion with Christ. (shrink)

The Romanian thinker Lucian Blaga, poet, playwright, and philosopher, created works in all of these fields that were penetrated and united by the same brilliant spirit, reflecting an admirable desire of reaching a philosophical consciousness. Firstly, this article deals with the so-called “historical issues” of this metaphysics. During his formative years he set about to create a philosophical system that aimed at dealing with the problems of transcendence. Blaga’s criticism of some of the most famous and influential philosophical positions, (...) such as critical philosophy, positivism, and phenomenology is explored. Secondly, this article attempts to continue the debate on the actual interpretations of Blaga’s metaphysics, especially his insight into “contemporary issues” such as inter-religious dialogue and American Pragmatism. Blaga’s philosophical works have scarcely been discovered by readers out side Romania and it is the purpose of this paper to show Blaga’s relevancy to broader philosophical arguments. (shrink)

This essay concerns Heidegger’s assertion that the biography of the poet is unimportant when interpreting great works of poetry. I approach the question in three ways. First, I consider its merits as a principle of literary interpretation and contrast Heidegger’s view with those of other Trakl interpreters. This allows me to clarify his view as a unique variety of non-formalistic interpretation and raise some potential worries about his approach. Second, I consider Heidegger’s view in the context of his broader (...) philosophical project. Viewed this way, Heidegger’s decision to neglect the poet’s biography seems quite reasonable and consistent with his inquiry into the being of language. Finally, I consider Heidegger’s suggestion that Trakl is a kind of mad genius. I recast this paradigmatic figure in terms of what I call the ‘wretched prophet’ and consider some ways in which its appeal sheds light on the crisis of modernity and the aestheticization of politics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 126.1 (2005) 135-138 [Access article in PDF] Jenny Strauss Clay. Hesiod's Cosmos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xii + 202 pp. Cloth, $65. This book, following on The Wrath of Athena (1983), The Politics of Olympus (1989), and a number of articles, continues Clay's distinctive work on "early Greek theology" (1), that is, the nature of gods and their relations with human beings as treated (...) in archaic epic poetry. For Clay, the works of early Greek epos can be seen as a coherent and interconnected whole, in which the combined subject matter of the Homeric Hymns, Iliad, and Odyssey is book-ended, as it were, by the two major Hesiodic poems: Theogony tells the story from the beginning of things to the accession of Zeus, whereas Works and Days describes life in the post-heroic Iron Age. Hesiod's Cosmos argues for a closely interrelated and complementary relationship between these two works, in which one poem looks at the world from a divine standpoint, paying little attention to human life, while the other focuses on the here-and-now exigencies of human existence, considering the gods mainly as they intersect with those realities. Together they make up a view of the world that transcends any single perspective, displaying the superior skill, intelligence, and inspiration of their poet. As a pragmatic explanation for this thoroughly intertextual relationship, Clay proposes that Hesiod may have been at work simultaneously on both compositions.Dealing succinctly with the Hesiodic Question about authorship and authorial persona, Clay locates the composition of Theogony and Works and Days in a middle ground, somewhere between the work of a historical poet, whose biography is reflected in the poems, and the product of a didactic tradition in which "Hesiod" is the persona that a performer of this poetry adopts (a view developed especially by Gregory Nagy). A historical Hesiod seems likely to Clay, but even so, "the voice we hear is constructed within the text for its own ends" (3). Although she maintains that this question is not central to her analysis of the Hesiodic poems, the nuanced and subtle cross-references that she postulates between the two works prompt her to write as if there were an individual, thoughtful author behind the texts—one working with ideas that will be taken up later by acknowledged "philosophical" writers. Further, and central to her methodology, Clay maintains (9) that it is both possible and desirable, if hardly simple, to seek authorial intentions in the works under discussion. The admittedly provocative goal of Hesiod's Cosmos, then, is to "demonstrate a coherent plan that unites the poems into a consistent vision that is both thoughtful and subtle" and thereby "to recover the reputation the Hesiodic poems long enjoyed in antiquity" (2: a discussion of Hesiod's ancient reputation would have been welcome here). [End Page 135]The book is well organized to achieve that end. It begins with a general chapter on Theogony and another on Works and Days, summarizing each work while emphasizing its structural peculiarities and teasing out the meanings suggested thereby. The five chapters that follow compare salient aspects of the two poems: their divergent proems, what they say about the origins of humankind, their two versions of the Prometheus story, the presentation of gods in Works and Days and men in Theogony, and finally each poem's treatment of what Clay terms "hybrids" (monsters and heroes, both being of mixed birth) in a chapter that includes substantial discussion of the Hesiodic Catalogues. A brief conclusion, focusing on the ancient theme of a contest between Hesiod and Homer, argues that Hesiodic poetry makes a claim to broader knowledge and scope than Homeric.A conspicuous and valuable characteristic of Clay's approach is her insistence on treating both texts in their entirety. Each poem is reviewed in linear sequence in the two introductory chapters, with an eye to its "intratextual" content—especially the relation of digressions to the structural backbone. The Theogony's basic structure is obviously genealogical, but its narrative digressions come at unpredictable junctures, some of them (such... (shrink)

This book is a rediscovery and examination of the thinking of Vasile Băncilă, a philosopher forbidden by the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. The philosopher Lucian Blaga saw Băncilă as a threat to the spirit of the highest Romanian culture. It is estimated that Băncilă's work extends to 32 volumes, 17 of which have been published so far. With such a significant opus, Vasile Băncilă is, indisputably, a key figure in contemporary Romanian culture, particularly in the sphere of (...) philosophy. The book has eleven chapters and is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the hermeneutics of the author's youthful works. His reflections on the purpose of philosophy for life are important, about the role of this discipline in the education of adolescents and students, the relationship between irony and education, his thoughts of one of the greatest Romanian poets, Mihai Eminescu, and the philosophy of Descartes and of Schopenhauer. In the second part, the book looks at Băncilă's aim of structuring a possible system of philosophy; more precisely, an ethnic-spiritualist metaphysics which, when it was elaborated, contradicted the official ideology of the totalitarian regime. Finally, the book covers the philosopher's work, analysing step-by-step the relation between the part and the whole (pars pro toto), as well as between existence and metaphysics, and the philosopher's conclusions about Romanian existence. (shrink)

Artist, poet, educationalist and autobiographer, Marion Milner is considered one of the most original of psychoanalytic thinkers whose life spans a century of radical change. _Marion Milner: The Life_,_ _is the first biography of this extraordinary woman. It introduces Milner and her works to the reader through her family, colleagues and, above all through her books, charting their evolution and development as well as their critical reception and contribution to current twenty-first century debates and discourses. In this book _Emma (...) Letley _draws_ _on primary sources, including the newly-opened Marion Milner Collection at the Archives of the British Psychoanalytical Society in London, as well as interviews and the re-contextualised series of Milner texts. She traces the process of Milner's writing of her books, her discovery of psychoanalysis, her training and her place in that world from the 1940's onwards. _Marion Milner: The Life _includes discussion of Milner's connection with D.W. Winnicott and her emergence as a most individual member of the Independent Group. Letley also shows how Milner's Personal Notebooks offer fascinating insights into her relationships, both personal and professional, and into many of her important ideas on creativity, the body-mind relationship, her revolutionary ideas on education and her particular personality as clinician working with both children and adults. Further, _Letley _explores Milner's literary character from her very early diaries and narratives to her last book written in her 90's published in 2012. Marion Milner: The Life places Marion Milner firmly in her Edwardian family setting and contains new material from primary sources, including a new view of her collegial connections. It provides a wealth of material on her life and works that will be invaluable to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, art psychotherapists, students, those involved with life writing and autobiography, and the general reader. (shrink)

An anonymous biography of Lucan known as the Life of Vacca attributes to the poet the composition of a work called Siluae. This information has been accepted by scholars with regard to both Lucan and Statius, thus transforming Lucan into a predecessor of Statius’ Siluae. This article seeks to demonstrate that neither the manuscript tradition of Lucan's biography nor alleged references to Lucan's Siluae in Statius’ collection substantiate the affirmation that Lucan composed a work called Siluae. It is (...) argued that the Life of Vacca is most probably late and its very long catalogue of works (mostly problematic or otherwise unknown) aggrandizes Lucan in response to the need for a commendatory biography of the poet when he became a school author. Pomponio Leto is responsible for perpetuating the mention of Lucan's Siluae by including it in his influential biography of Lucan (the first to reach the printed press). It is further argued that the circumstances of the tradition of Statius’ Siluae explain Leto's acceptance of Lucan's work of the same title. Leto was working on a commentary on the recently rediscovered Siluae, which explains his inclusion of a work called Siluae in his biography of Lucan, a great poet who had preceded Statius. Finally, this article deconstructs the theories that find references to Lucan's Siluae in Statius’ Siluae or that justify Statius’ silence about Lucan's Siluae with its political motifs. (shrink)

Les biographies de poètes et d' écrivains sont beaucoup plus nombreuses que celles de philosophes. Pour expliquer ce phénomène il se présente sûrement plusieurs raisons. Je n'en veux souligner qu'une: l'apparente objectivité du système philosophique, qui se fonderait sur la distance de l'œuvre à l'égard de son auteur et sur l'absence de marques personnelles. Pourtant on peut accepter que l'interrogation philosophique soit intemporelle ou « perennis » tout en concevant qu'elle soit liée à l'époque dans la formulation des problèmes et (...) des solutions, dans la conception de son idéal. Elle Test ainsi à travers le sujet de l'acte de philosophie: l'homme, qui participe nécessairement à son époque tout en ayant la possibilité de la dépasser. Bien plus, ses intuitions polarisatrices, ses perspectives de base correspondent souvent à une mentalité, à des aspirations et à des besoins spirituels propres à cette époque. (shrink)

This is an entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy that discusses the life and work of the Romanian philosopher, poet, and playwright Lucian Blaga.

In his biography of Polemon, head of the Academy from 313 to 269, Diogenes Laertius comments on Polemon's fondness for Sophocles after detailing Polemon's relationship with his predecessor, Xenocrates : ἐῴκει δὴ ὁ Πολέμων κατὰ πάντα ἐζηλωκέναι τὸν Ξενοκράτην· καὶ ἐρασθῆναι αὐτοῦ φησιν Ἀρίστιππος ἐν τῷ τετάρτῳ Περὶ παλαιᾶς τρυφῆς. ἀεὶ γοῦν ἐμέμνητο ὁ Πολέμων αὐτοῦ, τήν τ' ἀκακίαν καὶ τὸν αὐχμὸν ἐνεδέδυτο τἀνδρὸς καὶ τὸ βάρος οἱονεὶ Δώριός τις οἰκονομία. ἦν δὲ καὶ φιλοσοφοκλῆς, καὶ μάλιστα ἐν ἐκείνοις ὅπου (...) κατὰ τὸν κωμικὸν τὰ ποιήματα αὐτῷκύων τις ἐδόκει συμποιεῖν Μολοττικός,καὶ ἔνθα ἦν κατὰ τὸν Φρύνιχονοὐ γλύξις οὐδ' ὑπόχυτος, ἀλλὰ Πράμνιος.ἔλεγεν οὖν τὸν μὲν Ὅμηρον ἐπικὸν εἶναι Σοφοκλέα, τὸν δὲ Σοφοκλέα Ὅμηρον τραγικόν.It would seem that Polemon imitated Xenocrates in all respects. In the fourth book of On the Luxury of the Ancients, Aristippos says that he loved him. Certainly Polemon kept him in mind and, like him, wore that simple, dry dignity that is proper of the Dorian mode. He also loved Sophocles, particularly in those passages where it seemed as if, in the words of the comic poet, ‘a Molossian dog co-authored’ plays with him and where the poet was, in the words of Phrynichus, ‘neither bland nor doctored but Pramnian’. Thus he would call Homer the epic Sophocles and Sophocles the tragic Homer. The main source of Diogenes Laertius' Life of Polemon is Antigonus of Carystus, who was active in Athens and Pergamon around the mid third century. In addition to being generally considered a reliable author, Antigonus is also chronologically close to Polemon's lifetime. He is also the source of Philodemus' History of Philosophers, a work preserved by two important papyri from Herculaneum. Philodemus, too, mentions Polemon's admiration for Sophocles, although he gives a shorter version than Diogenes Laertius: λέγεται δὲ καὶ φιλοσοφοκλῆς γενέσθαι καὶ μά || λιστα τὸ ΠΑ[.]Α[……….] | τῆς φωνῆς καὶ παρα[….] ἀποδέχεσθαι. In Dorandi's translation, Philodemus records that ‘si dice che [Polemone] fu ammiratore di Sofocle e soprattutto ne apprezzò l'audacia e ciò che suonava duro’. (shrink)

Camil Petrescu (1894-1957) was a Romanian novelist, dramatist, poet and philosopher. His PhD thesis in philosophy was entitled The Aesthetic Method of Theater, and wasinfluenced by Joseph Gregor, Julius Bab, Gordon Craig, Constantin Stanislavski, Adolphe Appia, and William Butler Yeats.. His thesis was published in 1937. In Romanian literature, he was the initiator of the modern novel, with the volume The Last Night of Love, the First Night of War (1930). As a philosopher he was influned by and (...) continued to studyPlato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, James, Bergson and Husserl. Petrescu is the first Romanian philosopher to write a micro-monograph about Husserl (1938). His main philosophical work, entitled The Doctrine of Substance (deposited in 1942 to the Library of Vatican), was published in 1988 (The Doctrine of Substance, volumes I-II). In this paper, I present a placement of the Romanian philosopher in his time and in the relationshe has with his contemporaries, some of them of world-class (Mircea Eliade, Eugen Ionesco, Emil Cioran, inclusiv Constantin Noica). (shrink)