In the context of the entangled productions of scientific archaeology, photographic technologies, and the Greek nation-state, this article analyses the ancient Greek idea of the eidōlon (image, phantom, double) as a paradigm for photography. Sophia Engastromenou Schliemann presented herself for the camera as Helen of Troy and mobilized an ancient textual debate about Helen and her double and the Trojan War. This image of Sophia adorned in Trojan gold is widely known and little studied and, as this essay will explore, it circulated far beyond Sophia’s control. Undergirding this article’s historical contingencies is an exploration of the photograph as eidōlon.
{"title":"Sophia’s double: photography, archaeology, and modern Greece","authors":"J. Stager","doi":"10.1093/crj/clac016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clac016","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In the context of the entangled productions of scientific archaeology, photographic technologies, and the Greek nation-state, this article analyses the ancient Greek idea of the eidōlon (image, phantom, double) as a paradigm for photography. Sophia Engastromenou Schliemann presented herself for the camera as Helen of Troy and mobilized an ancient textual debate about Helen and her double and the Trojan War. This image of Sophia adorned in Trojan gold is widely known and little studied and, as this essay will explore, it circulated far beyond Sophia’s control. Undergirding this article’s historical contingencies is an exploration of the photograph as eidōlon.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44369694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay examines the development of the image of Prometheus as a symbol of the revolutionary in Russia and the Soviet Union. After providing a historical overview of pre-Soviet and early-Soviet receptions of Prometheus’ image in Alexander Scriabin’s symphony Prometheus: The Poem of Fire (Prometei: Poema Ognia, 1908–10) and in the unfinished production of the ancient Greek tragic trilogy at the Moscow Art Theatre (1925–27), I focus on the analysis of Prometheus’ myth in three screen adaptations: the 1936 film Prometheus (Prometei) by Soviet Ukrainian director Ivan Kavaleridze and the animated films The Return from Olympus (Vozvrashchenie s Olimpa, 1969), and Prometheus (Prometei, 1974) by Alexandra Snezhko-Blotskaya. I demonstrate that, besides the animation films directed by Snezhko-Blotskaya, the rest of the receptions were not successful at the time of their production. I examine how the creative programs of these projects did not fit the contemporary context, institutional framework, or official ideology because of technical, aesthetical, and political reasons. I argue that the screen receptions of Prometheus’ myth employed Prometheus’ image to reflect on and to address the changing political and cultural climate of the Soviet Union during critical periods of its history.
{"title":"Prometheus in Russia: from Revolution to Dissidence","authors":"Ekaterina But","doi":"10.1093/crj/clac015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clac015","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This essay examines the development of the image of Prometheus as a symbol of the revolutionary in Russia and the Soviet Union. After providing a historical overview of pre-Soviet and early-Soviet receptions of Prometheus’ image in Alexander Scriabin’s symphony Prometheus: The Poem of Fire (Prometei: Poema Ognia, 1908–10) and in the unfinished production of the ancient Greek tragic trilogy at the Moscow Art Theatre (1925–27), I focus on the analysis of Prometheus’ myth in three screen adaptations: the 1936 film Prometheus (Prometei) by Soviet Ukrainian director Ivan Kavaleridze and the animated films The Return from Olympus (Vozvrashchenie s Olimpa, 1969), and Prometheus (Prometei, 1974) by Alexandra Snezhko-Blotskaya. I demonstrate that, besides the animation films directed by Snezhko-Blotskaya, the rest of the receptions were not successful at the time of their production. I examine how the creative programs of these projects did not fit the contemporary context, institutional framework, or official ideology because of technical, aesthetical, and political reasons. I argue that the screen receptions of Prometheus’ myth employed Prometheus’ image to reflect on and to address the changing political and cultural climate of the Soviet Union during critical periods of its history.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42576436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to: Shakespeare’s suppliants: the ‘rotten custom’ of ancient asylum seeking in Coriolanus","authors":"C. Wald","doi":"10.1093/crj/clac005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clac005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43221025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Using recent affect theories, this article focuses on the role that emotion plays in new receptions of ancient texts, in this case the emotion of longing for home — for the place, as well as for the people — as we find it in the Homeric epics and in the modern Caribbean world of Derek Walcott. Longing for home in the Odyssey is portrayed as a contradictory emotion comprising both place attachment and grief, often felt with some ambivalence about returning home at all. I argue that, responding to this emotional tension, in his poem Omeros Walcott attempts to heal the historical wounds of slavery and a longing for a home that no longer exists through a new appreciation of and attachment to the landscape of St. Lucia. In addition, by challenging a Eurocentric view of racial dominance, it becomes possible to acknowledge anew the importance of Egyptian and other African influences on the Homeric tradition, influences that may have been neglected or dismissed, allowing for a new appreciation of the Homeric poem and place attachment in a post-colonial world.
{"title":"Longing For Home: A Complex Emotion in Homer’s Odyssey and Derek Walcott’s Omeros","authors":"Karen Possingham","doi":"10.1093/crj/clac001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clac001","url":null,"abstract":"Using recent affect theories, this article focuses on the role that emotion plays in new receptions of ancient texts, in this case the emotion of longing for home — for the place, as well as for the people — as we find it in the Homeric epics and in the modern Caribbean world of Derek Walcott. Longing for home in the Odyssey is portrayed as a contradictory emotion comprising both place attachment and grief, often felt with some ambivalence about returning home at all. I argue that, responding to this emotional tension, in his poem Omeros Walcott attempts to heal the historical wounds of slavery and a longing for a home that no longer exists through a new appreciation of and attachment to the landscape of St. Lucia. In addition, by challenging a Eurocentric view of racial dominance, it becomes possible to acknowledge anew the importance of Egyptian and other African influences on the Homeric tradition, influences that may have been neglected or dismissed, allowing for a new appreciation of the Homeric poem and place attachment in a post-colonial world.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138530354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}