A01=Judith Herrin
Abstract Personifications
Alan H. Sommerstein
allegorical interpretation
Amy C. Smith
Ancient Greece
ancient visual culture
Animal Kingdom
anthropomorphic abstraction research
Arlene Allan
Attic Red Figure
Attic Vase Painters
Attic White Ground Lekythos
Author_Judith Herrin
Barbara E. Borg
Calyx Krater
Canon Tables
Category=AGA
Category=DSBB
City Tyche
classical religious symbolism
Diana Burton
Dionysiac Procession
Efthymios G. Lazongas
Elizabeth Jeffreys
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Eretria Painter
Eros Cult
Eva Parisinou
Female Bust
gender in antiquity
Globus Cruciger
Golden Wings
Greek mythology studies
Hellenistic allegory
Home Towns
Irina Kovaleva
Iskra Gencheva-Mikami
Janet Huskinson
Kerasia Stratiki
Kristen Seaman
Late Antique Mosaics
Late Antique Viewer
Liz James
Lucas Siorvanes
Naoko Yamagata
Nea Paphos
Nicolas Richer
Past Tenses
Penelope Murray
Pomegranate Tree
Ruth Leader-Newby
South Italian Vase Painting
Theodore Prodromos
Torch Race
Walter Burkert
Yorgis Yatromanolakis
Young Man
Product details
- ISBN 9780754650317
- Weight: 900g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 21 Oct 2005
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Personification, the anthropomorphic representation of any non-human thing, is a ubiquitous feature of ancient Greek literature and art. Natural phenomena (earth, sky, rivers), places (cities, countries), divisions of time (seasons, months, a lifetime), states of the body (health, sleep, death), emotions (love, envy, fear), and political concepts (victory, democracy, war) all appear in human, usually female, form. Some have only fleeting incarnations, others become widely-recognised figures, and others again became so firmly established as deities in the imagination of the community that they received elements of cult associated with the Olympian gods. Though often seen as a feature of the Hellenistic period, personifications can be found in literature, art and cult from the Archaic period onwards; with the development of the art of allegory in the Hellenistic period, they came to acquire more 'intellectual' overtones; the use of allegory as an interpretative tool then enabled personifications to survive the advent of Christianity, to remain familiar figures in the art and literature of Late Antiquity and beyond. The twenty-one papers presented here cover personification in Greek literature, art and religion from its pre-Homeric origins to the Byzantine period. Classical Athens features prominently, but other areas of both mainland Greece and the Greek East are well represented. Issues which come under discussion include: problems of identification and definition; the question of gender; the status of personifications in relation to the gods; the significance of personification as a literary device; the uses and meanings of personification in different visual media; personification as a means of articulating place, time and worldly power. The papers reflect the enormous range of contexts in which personification occurs, indicating the ubiquity of the phenomenon in the ancient Greek world.
Dr Emma Stafford is Lecturer the School of Classics at the University of Leeds, UK. Judith Herrin is Professor at the Centre for Hellenic Studies, King's College London, UK.
