Greco-Latin poetry and prose

Research projects:

Intertextuality in Martial´s poetry

 Description: As usual in the Ancient literature, the work by the Latin poet Martial is constituted under the sign of the imitatio or mimesis. Through this procedure, the author in a way recovered another consecrated by traditional writer´s work, giving his own treatment to the borrowed elements. In an immense amount of epigrams, between the 1555 composed by Martial, we can observe several traces of that imitation, several allusions to other authors´ productions, either writers in prose or, more often, poets. Those allusions, that occur in multiple ways and through diverse mechanisms, can provide many different effects of meaning in the epigrammatist´s work, depending on the author invoked, on the mechanism of allusion adopted, on the context in which the borrowed element is insert, in a word, on the way the poet deals with and incorporates other texts and authors´ voices into his production. Therefore, this Project aims to study the intertextual links established between the epigrams by Martial and the others Greek and Latin writers. Those links produce new meanings, generate new senses in the epigrammatist´s poetry, making it even richer and more surprising.

 

Professor in charge: Robson Tadeu Cesila (robson.cesila@yahoo.com.br)

 

The dynamics of intertextuality in the poetic works of the Portuguese humanist Antonio de Gouveia and his classical sources

Description: The goal of this project is to offer an edition of the 16th-century poetry of Antonio de Gouveia (epigrams and elegies), focussing on the intertextual relations of imitation of classical authors, such as Ovid and Virgil.

Professor in charge: Ricardo da Cunha Lima (rcl@usp.br)

 

Plato’s Dialogues

Description: This project aims to study the various philosophical and literary aspects of the dialogues of Plato, with special emphasis on the translation of his work.

Professor in charge: Daniel Rossi Nunes Lopes (danielopes@usp.br)

 

The pragmatic History of Polybius

Description: Critical studies focusing on the Histories of Polybius of Megalopolis (200?-118? B.C.).

Professor in charge: Breno Batisttin Sebastiani (sebastiani@usp.br)

 

Life, History´s teacher: failure and lucidity in the texts by Thucydides and Polybius

 

Description: Definition and examination of Ancient Historiography as written by apostrátegoi based on the narratives that Thucydides and Polybius produced about their own political failures. Development in three steps that presupposes a comparative approach: to analyze how Thucydides and Polybius remember their respective failures; to analyse the refinement of the political reflection of every historian implied by other strategists´ judgments; and to analyze the socio-political function of the apostrátegos who wrote History in his context. These assumptions are founded on the works by J. Thornton, to whom the cultural and rhetorical aspects in those texts are subordinated to the political goals that each historian had when writing.

Professor in charge: Breno Batisttin Sebastiani (sebastiani@usp.br)

 

 

Hellenistic literature

Description: The project aims to study Greek poetic texts produced during the Hellenistic period (323 to 31 B.C.), focusing on the works of Callimachus, Apollonius of Rhodes and Theocritus. Through an aesthetical discussion on the delimitation and the mixes of poetic genres as part of a poetic program, we intend to address the treatment given to epic, iamb, elegy, epigram, and bucolic poetry from the concept of allusive art applied to the Hellenistic poetry.

Professor in charge: Fernando Rodrigues Jr. (fernandorjr@usp.br)

 

Archaic and late archaic melic: themes, forms, and language

Description: The research project focuses on the study of Greek melic poetry, composed between the end of the 7th century B.C. to the middle of the 5th century B.C., in various locations and from diverse cultural traditions, represented primarily by the canon of the ‘nine lyrics’: Alcman, Sappho, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Stesichorus, and Ibycus in the archaic period; Simonides, Bacchylides, and Pindar, in the late archaic period. The prime concern of this study is to analyse, in the remaining work of these poets, prominent and recurring themes, shapes that are repeated in the stylistic construction of the verses, and the work with the language in its various shades, registers, and figurations. The approach of this work always focuses on the Greek text, combining the interpretative analysis and translation tasks, and considering its source of transmission, its main editions and the relationship they can establish with extratextual elements, especially with data from Greek history, archaeology, and religion.

Professor in charge: Giuliana Ragusa (gragusa@uol.com.br)

 

Themes, forms, and language in the Archaic and Classical Greek poetry

Description: The project aims to investigate the compositional elements of the Archaic and Classical Greek poetry, mainly the melic, by concentrating on three of them: the themes broached by the poets; the forms employed in the rhetorical or discursive practice; the language and its elaboration in the several (sub)genres present in the corpus. Furthermore, we also provide a translation with footnotes and introductions. The goal of it is to strengthen the connections between the research developed by the Professor and the students under her supervision.

Professor in charge: Giuliana Ragusa (gragusa@uol.com.br)

 

 

Euripides’s tragedy: translation and study

Description: The goal of this project is to study and translate the tragedies of Euripides, to relate them in time and to the city of Athens.

Professor in charge: Adriane da Silva Duarte (asduarte@usp.br)

 

Chaereas and Callirhoe: translation and study of the novel by Charito of Afrodisias

 

Description: This research aims to provide the novel Chaereas and Callirhoe (I b. C. - I a. C.), by Charito of Afrodisias, to the reader in the Portuguese language, mainly the Brazilian. We will also put it into the context of its epoch and genre, in order to contribute to the studies of the narratives in Greek prose. Therefore, we will offer a translation of that novel and write an introductory essay that situates the work and presents it and its genre, for the purpose of compensating for the lack of editions and studies about it in our country.

 

Professor in charge: Adriane da Silva Duarte (asduarte@usp.br)

 

Investigating the Athenian theater: society, language, performance

Description:  This project´s axis is the investigation on the theater performed in Athens during the 5th century b.C., taking into special consideration the tragedy by Euripides and the comedy by Aristophanes. We propose an examination of the relationship between the dramatic genres and the Athenian society; their intersection with other discourse genres that operate in the polis; and the performative character of that production. Moreover, we also contemplate this corpus´ translation into the Portuguese language.

 

Professor in charge: Adriane da Silva Duarte (asduarte@usp.br)

 

 

 

Marcus Aurelius - Emperor and literate

Description: Research for publication in bilingual edition; direct translation from the Greek with notes and introductory text of the book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius; analysis of grammatical issues and of points of philosophical doctrine of stoic morality from the translational work.

Professor in charge: José Rodrigues Seabra Filho (ricklou@usp.br)

 

Elegy, epigram, and iamb in ancient Greece

Description: The objectives of this Project are: to investigate the specificity of iamb, epigram, and elegy in ancient Greece as poetic genres; and to develop comments to texts and philological thematic studies relating to the corpus.

Professor in charge: Paula da Cunha Corrêa (correa@usp.br)

 

The Minimus Project III: Greek and Latin in the elementary school

 

Description: This project aims to continue the work accomplished since February 2013 in the EMEF Desembargador Amorim Lima, into which we input the teaching of the Greek and Latin languages, respectively in the 6th / 7th and 4th degree of the elementary school. Due to the absence of a control group, it is difficult to estimate the extent of the improvement of the students´ proficiency in vernacular language, and of their development of logical reasoning and critical thought provided by the project (DeVane, A. K, 1997). Nevertheless, the results have been highly positive, so much so the Principal required the project to be continued. Some other teachers, encouraged by their pupils, also demanded Greek and Latin classes, once their students had showed such an interest and enthusiasm to learn those languages. Since 2013, we have been using the translation of the handbook Minimus (Cambridge University Press, 1999), written by our team, for the Latin classes; for the Greek, teachers prepare activities and (what the fuck!  Fixation!?  Sorry, I don’t a clue what you are thinking of, my love) exercises to aid the method Athenaze (Oxford University Press, 2011), and also employ some other handbooks, such as Reading Greek (translated into Portuguese as Aprendendo Grego, Odysseus, 2014).

Our team give Greek and Latin classes to children twice a week during the whole school year and, at the same time, offer classes to their teachers, if they ask for them.

 

Professor: Paula da Cunha Correa (correa@usp.br)

 

 

Latin declamation

 Description: This Project includes both Latin texts on declamation and this practice´s links with different genres in Poetry and Prose. If the declamation had developed since the beginnings of the Principality, the privileged era for the studies on the declamatory praxis is the post Classical Latin literature.

 

Professor in charge: Pablo Schwartz Frydman (pablosf@usp.br)

 

 

Hesiodic and Homeric epic

Description: Thematic and/or comparative studies involving the poems: Theogony and Works and Days, by Hesiod; the Iliad and Odyssey, by Homer; and the so-called Homeric hymns, to uncover important points for the understanding of these works, the relations between them and the way its elements appear in later works or other genres.

Professor in charge: André Malta Campos (andremal@usp.br)

 

Study of the organisation of Horace’s books of Odes

Description: The aim is to investigate how Horace organizes his four books of Odes. First, we will study the organization of the first three, published together, a fact evidenced by the relationship of both res and uerba of carm. 1, 1 and 3, 30. Such an investigation goes through the study of metric, models (archaic and Hellenistic), species, amongst other aspects. Then, in the second half, we will study the organization of the fourth and final book of the Odes, which seem to be in consonance with much of the previous production, a fact evidenced by carm. 4, 8, in which not only is the first lyric set mentioned, but also the book of Epodes.

Professor in charge: Alexandre Pinheiro Hasegawa (ahasegawa@usp.br)

 

Study and translation of Seneca’s tragic poetry

Description: This Project aims to conduct a literary and linguistic study of the tragic poetry of Seneca, dealing mostly with the following topics: 1. The analysis of the stylistic facts; 2. The references and intertextual effects; and 3. The relationship of Seneca´s poetry with Ancient Rhetoric and Poetry. This work´s goal is therefore to make an exegesis of the Senecan theatrical Latin text, aiming to elaborate their translation into Portuguese.

Professor in charge: José Eduardo dos Santos Lohner (jelohner@usp.br)

 

Euripides: complete theatre, study, and translation

Description: Study and translation of Euripides’s theatre as literary documents of permanence and transformation of mythical thought in the cultural and political horizon of Athens in the 5th century B.C.

Professor in charge: José Antônio Alves Torrano (jtorrano@usp.br)

 

Poetic and discursive genres in the attic tragedy

Description: The intention is to go through how the attic tragedy articulates poetic and discursive genres, in particular, through the narrative of traditional stories (‘myths’).

Professor in charge: Christian Werner (crwerner@usp.br)

 

Supernatural implications in Seneca’s tragedy: relations between gods and men

Description: From what is observed in Greek tragedy and confronting it with Latin tragedy, we can assume that, concerning the relations between men and gods, there is a big difference between the approaches in the tragic works belonging to both literatures. In Latin tragedy (i.e., in the texts of Seneca), the gods appear few times. Deities, when mentioned, work as entities to whom prayers and requests are directed, are regarded as superior beings that protect men, or as beings deserving of criticism and censorship. The analysis of Seneca’s tragedy – object of our research project – will allow a more accurate positioning regarding the matter.

Professor in charge: Zélia Ladeira Veras de Almeida Cardoso (flc@usp.br)

 

Greek and Latin mythographers: Hyginus, Apollodorus, Ps-Eratosthenes

Description: Object: works of Hyginus (‘Myths’; ‘Astronomy’), Apollodorus (‘Library’), Ps-Eratosthenes (‘Catasterismi’).

Purpose: to investigate the dependence of a work on the other (e.g., of ‘Astronomy’ regarding ‘Catasterismi’), common sources (e.g., of ‘Myths’ and ‘Library’), criteria that guide the organisation of the narrated myths (e.g., genealogy), genres of interpretation of myths (e.g., allegorical interpretation, rationalism etc.).

Professor in charge: Marcos Martinho dos Santos (marcos.martinho@usp.br)

 

Lessons by Greek and Latin grammarians and rhetors on metaplasms, figures and tropes: the genus and the species of the figures of speech

Description: This Project aims to study the genus and the species of the figures such as they were described by Greek and Latin grammarians and rhetoricians. In other words, it aims to study: in the figures, the distinction between figures of speech and figures of thought; in the figures of speech, the distinction between grammatical and rhetorical figures; in the grammatical figures, the distinction between the figure employed in the part of the clause and the figure employed in the accident of the part of the clause.

Professor in charge: Marcos Martinho dos Santos (marcos.martinho@usp.br)

 

 

The ‘On Anger’ dialogue, by Seneca: study, translation, and notes

Description: We intend to fully translate the dialogue ‘On Anger’ by Seneca. The study should encompass philological, literary, and philosophical-theoretical questions, especially topics of particular interest to the study of Seneca’s tragedies - highlighting what concerns the characterisation of the angry characters.

Linked to the project ‘Latin philosophical texts: translation and study’.

Professor in charge: José Eduardo dos Santos Lohner (jelohner@usp.br)

 

The Portuguese dactylic hexameter

Description: The project aims to list all authors and all Portuguese poems, whether original or translation, that employ the reconstruction of Greek dactylic hexameters, adapting them to contemporary Portuguese rules, and comment on them.

Objectives: immediately put back in circulation authors and modalities of vernacular dactylic hexameter, used later with variations by Carlos Alberto Nunes in his translations of the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid, but bloomed in the late 18th century, beginning of the 19th in Portugal. Gather theoretical and practical information about translation possibilities of ancient authors to foster the history of poetic translation of the Greek and Latin epic in Portuguese.

Professor in charge: Alexandre Pinheiro Hasegawa (ahasegawa@usp.br), João Angelo Oliva Neto (olivanet@usp.br)

 

Odysseus and craftiness: an interpretation of the ‘Odyssey’

Description: The objective of this research is to perform an interpretation of the Odyssey centred on its main hero, Odysseus, considering his most prominent character trait, craftiness (in Greek, metis), as a guiding principle for the integral reading of this epic poem. The study aims to combine three approaches (developed in previous research), arising from a particular perception of language within the Homeric poetry: the moral approach (according to which, the characters.

Professor in charge: André Malta Campos (andremal@usp.br)

 

Plato’s Dialogues

Description: This project aims to study the various philosophical and literary aspects of the dialogues of Plato, with special emphasis on the translation of his work.

Professor in charge: Daniel Rossi Nunes Lopes (danielopes@usp.br)

 

Archaic lyric poetry: Pindar

Description: Analysis and translation of a selection of preserved Pindaric poetry. The historical-philological analysis and its core are the conditions of production and reception of the poems in the context of the Greek archaic poetic tradition, in particular, the circumscription of the genus of the compositions.

Professor in charge: Christian Werner (crwerner@usp.br)

 

Latin philosophical texts: translation and study

Description: In this project, the goal is to translate into Portuguese philosophical texts composed in Latin. In addition to the translation, the texts will be studied, which may have linguistic, philosophical and historical characteritstics. The object of study is mainly the systematic examination (sorry my love, not sure if this is the best word) of philosophy, but other works are covered, which, though distinct in nature, use philosophical doctrines in their composition.

Professor in charge: Sidney Calheiros de Lima (sidneycalheiros@hotmail.com)

 

Poetic and discursive traditions in Homer and Hesiod

Description: In Greek musical and literary culture, poetic genres are not watertight categories, but types of speech, conditioned by diction and occasions of specific performance that define one another. This research examines the conditions of production and reception of Homeric and Hesiodic ‘epos’.

Professor in charge: Christian Werner (crwerner@usp.br)

 

 

Polyphony of genres and representations of 'kleos' in the Homeric poetry and in the attic drama

 

Description: This Project aims to investigate how the polysemous notion of kleos (oral narrative, fame, glory) is articulated in the Greek epic tradition and in its reception into the attic drama. This research will focus in two main moments: Homer´s Odyssey and Euripides´ theatre, especially the plays Andromache, Heracles and Cyclops. In those texts, the actions achieved in the past by the heroes and brought into the present through several voices, that employ different discourses and discursive genres, which, by their turn, disclose a complex world. This world can eventually be fractionated (what the fuck!? – fractionated!??? – it doesn’t exist in English, as far as I know), and therefore the kleos does not mean simply praise or exemplarity, but also allows to sketch a problem that refers to the image the audience makes of itself and of its past. The differences in the way how a world of heroic deeds is built are big, from the epic performances in Archaic Greece to the dramatic ones in Classical Athens, but the perplexity faces the liaison between the violence of the deeds and the celebration of them, as well as the inquiry about the fundamentals of that recollection, are constant.

 

Professor in charge: Christian Werner (crwerner@usp.br)