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"Orfeo out of Care"
(2022)
The paper focuses on an example of multiple-step reception: the contribution of the classical story of Orpheus and Eurydice and the mediaeval lay Sir Orfeo to Tolkien’s work.
In the first part, I compare the lay with Virgilian and Ovidian versions of Orpheus’ myth. This comparison shows the anonymous author’s deep knowledge of the ancient texts and complex way of rewriting them through stealing and hybridization.
The lay was highly esteemed by Tolkien, who translated it and took inspiration from it while describing the Elven kingdom in The Hobbit and building the storyline of Beren and Lúthien in The Silmarillion. Through this key tale, Orpheus/Orfeo’s romance has a deep influence also on Aragorn and Arwen’s story in The Lord of the Rings. The most important element that Tolkien takes from the Sir Orfeo figuration of the ancient story is undoubtedly the insertion of political theme: the link established between the recovery of the main character’s beloved and the return to royal responsability.
The second part of the paper is, thus, dedicated to the reception of Sir Orfeo and the classical myth in Tolkien. It shows how in his work the different steps of the tradition of Orpheus’ story are co-present, creating an inextricable substrate of inspiration that nourishes his imagination.
The paper investigates Tolkien’s narratives of decline through the lens of their classical ancestry. Narratives of decline are widespread in ancient culture, in both philosophical and literary discourses. They normally posit a gradual degradation (moral and ontological) from an idealized Golden Age, which went hand-in-hand with increasing detachment of gods from mortal affairs. Narratives of decline are also at the core of Tolkien’s mythology, constituting yet another underresearched aspect of classical influence on Tolkien. Such Classical narratives reverberate e.g. in Tolkien’s division of Arda’s history into ages, from an idealized First Age filled with Joy and Light to a Third Age, described as “Twilight Age (…) the first of the broken and changed world” (Letters 131). More generally, these narratives are related to Tolkien’s notorious perception of history as a “long defeat” (Letters 195) and to that “heart-racking sense of the vanished past” which pervades Tolkien’s works – the emotion which, in his words, moved him “supremely” and which he found “small difficulty in evoking” (Letters 91). The paper analyses the reception of narratives of decline in Tolkien’s legendarium, pointing out similarities but also contrasts and differences, with the aim to discuss some key patterns of (classical) reception in Tolkien’s theory and practice (‘renewal’, ‘accommodation’, ‘focalization’).
This paper analyzes a specific section of Martial’s Apophoreta (Book 14), the ‘list’ of fourteen literary works that the poet-persona suggests to the reader as potentially suitable presents to give to friends on the occasion of the Saturnalia. It focuses strictly on the literary aspects of the poems and their underlying carnivalesque poetics. This includes an assessment of the logic of the poems’ arrangement and alleged inconsistencies. It is suggested that the section be read as a complex statement of Martial’s on various works and genres of Greek and Roman literature. The last couplet of the section (14.196), a certain Calvus’ work ‘On the use of cold water’ (De aquae frigidae usu), which is unidentifiable, receives particular attention, for previous scholarship has wasted a lot of ink on guessing what kind of work this may have been, thereby losing touch with the rich (meta-)poetics the couplet actually conveys.
Abgrund Afghanistan
(2014)
Afghanistan ist seit über 30 Jahren ein von Kriegen geschütteltes Land. Ende 2014 soll der Einsatz der ISAF-Truppen dort beendet werden, doch erscheint dieses „Manöver“ eher wie ein Abbruch denn wie ein geordneter Abzug nach erfolgreicher Mission. Die Sicherheitslage vor Ort ist weiterhin instabil. Das bedeutet auch Instabilität für die Region. Deutsche und internationale Experten ziehen die ernüchternde Bilanz eines militärischen Abenteuers, die bei zukünftigen Auslandseinsätzen - auch der Bundeswehr - bedacht werden sollte.
The importance of cryptic diversity in rotifers is well understood regarding its ecological consequences, but there remains an in depth comprehension of the underlying molecular mechanisms and forces driving speciation. Temperature has been found several times to affect species spatio-temporal distribution and organisms’ performance, but we lack information on the mechanisms that provide thermal tolerance to rotifers. High cryptic diversity was found recently in the freshwater rotifer “Brachionus calyciflorus”, showing that the complex comprises at least four species: B. calyciflorus sensu stricto (s.s.), B. fernandoi, B. dorcas, and B. elevatus. The temporal succession among species which have been observed in sympatry led to the idea that temperature might play a crucial role in species differentiation.
The central aim of this study was to unravel differences in thermal tolerance between species of the former B. calyciflorus species complex by comparing phenotypic and gene expression responses. More specifically, I used the critical maximum temperature as a proxy for inter-species differences in heat-tolerance; this was modeled as a bi-dimensional phenotypic trait taking into consideration the intention and the duration of heat stress. Significant differences on heat-tolerance between species were detected, with B. calyciflorus s.s. being able to tolerate higher temperatures than B. fernandoi.
Based on evidence of within species neutral genetic variation, I further examined adaptive genetic variability within two different mtDNA lineages of the heat tolerant B. calyciflorus s.s. to identify SNPs and genes under selection that might reflect their adaptive history. These analyses did not reveal adaptive genetic variation related to heat, however, they show putatively adaptive genetic variation which may reflect local adaptation. Functional enrichment of putatively positively selected genes revealed signals of adaptation in genes related to “lipid metabolism”, “xenobiotics biodegradation and metabolism” and “sensory system”, comprising candidate genes which can be utilized in studies on local adaptation. An absence of genetically-based differences in thermal adaptation between the two mtDNA lineages, together with our knowledge that B. calyciflorus s.s. can withstand a broad range of temperatures, led to the idea to further investigate shared transcriptomic responses to long-term exposure to high and low temperatures regimes. With this, I identified candidate genes that are involved in the response to temperature imposed stress. Lastly, I used comparative transcriptomics to examine responses to imposed heat-stress in heat-tolerant and heat-sensitive Brachionus species. I found considerably different patterns of gene expression in the two species. Most striking are patterns of expression regarding the heat shock proteins (hsps) between the two species. In the heat-tolerant, B. calyciflorus s.s., significant up-regulation of hsps at low temperatures was indicative of a stress response at the cooler end of the temperature regimes tested here. In contrast, in the heat-sensitive B. fernandoi, hsps generally exhibited up-regulation of these genes along with rising temperatures. Overall, identification of differences in expression of genes suggests suppression of protein biosynthesis to be a mechanism to increase thermal tolerance. Observed patterns in population growth are correlated with the hsp gene expression differences, indicating that this physiological stress response is indeed related to phenotypic life history performance.
Theocritus’ id. 4 has been considered by some scholars as an example of rural mime; the fact that the poem, a unique case in the Corpus Theocriteum, does not contain any pastoral song or contest contributes to the impression of ‘realism’. This lack could be an obstacle for the poetological approach to the bucolic genre in antiquity, which considers metapoetry as its main feature. Our reading of the idyll shows that this limitation is only apparent.
Echnaton, Nofrete und die neu gebaute Hauptstadt Amarna beschäftigen nicht nur Archäologen und Ägyptologen, sondern sie sind seit langem Themen der Religions- und Kunstgeschichte, jetzt auch der Sozialgeschichte. Seit dem Fund der Tontafeln (1887) mit der Korrespondenz des Königs und der deutschen Ausgrabung von 1911-14 sind die Diskussionen über die Amarnazeit nicht abgerissen. Die Publikation stellt die Lebensräume der Stadtbewohner (Stadt, Umland, Gebäude) vor, zeichnet die Lebensbilder bedeutender Persönlichkeiten und beschreibt die Weltbilder dieser Zeit, die sich in Kunst und Religion widerspiegeln.
From the fluid dresses woven from precious materials evoking the iconic statues of Antiquity to the revival of Spartan shoes, two emblematic fashion trends will help us study the place of Greek Antiquity in contemporary women’s fashion collections. Ordinary as well as extraordinary, what do these reminiscences tell? Can they permit to understand the boundaries that structure and govern the fashion’s worlds? Numerous and diverse, the differences and the similarities of the ways in which classical references are used allow us to study the relations of power in which the specificities of haute couture and ready-to-wear are defined. The values, the entry criteria, the operating hierarchies as well as the very acceptance of the word “fashion” are different from one environment to another. From the catwalks of big fashion houses on Avenue Montaigne such as Chanel to the youngest brands, the differentiated readings and uses of Antiquity raise the question of the symbolic value of classics in fashion.