Gastvorträge

Gastvorträge:
Das Seminar für Klassische Philologie und die Göttinger Freunde der antiken Literatur laden im Wintersemester 2024/25 zu folgenden Gastvorträgen ein (dritter Vortrag folgt):

Thomas Kuhn-Treichel
Thema: Poeta necans. Metaleptische Figurentötungen in der Antike und darüber hinaus.
Termin: 21.11.24 | 18.00 c.t.
Raum: folgt

Abstract: Der Vortrag verfolgt metaleptische Formulierungen, denen zufolge Autoren oder Erzähler ihre Figuren töten, durch die Antike und ausblickweise bis zum modernen Roman. Leitfrage ist, welche Konzepte des Erzählens sich aus den jeweiligen Formulierungen ableiten lassen und inwieweit sich diese epochenspezifisch unterscheiden. Dabei zeigt sich schon in der Antike eine bemerkenswerte Bandbreite an Implikationen, deren verbindendes Merkmal ist, dass das Töten als selbstverständliche Aufgabe von Autoren erscheint, während das Töten in der Neuzeit immer öfter problematisiert wird. Der Vortrag zeigt damit exemplarisch die Potenziale der Diachronen Narratologie auf und wirft zugleich ein Licht auf den Tod als literarisches Motiv.

Ioannis Konstantakos
Thema: Herodotus' 'Thousand and One
Nights': the Herodotean logos of Egypt and ancient Egyptian narrative. (vorläufiger Titel)
Termin: 15.01.25 | 18.00 c.t.
Raum: folgt

Abstract: In the beginning of his long exposition of the early history of Egypt (2.99-142), Herodotus declares that the information about the country’s successive kings and their deeds was provided to him by the Egyptian priests (doubtless referring to the functionaries of the temple of Ptah/Hephaestus at Memphis). The entire narration regarding those pharaohs of old is transcribed in indirect speech, as though a report placed on the priests’ lips. Nevertheless, Herodotus’ claim cannot be accurate, because many ingredients of the narrative seem clearly to have been drawn from other sources (Greek mythographers or inhabitants of Naucratis, local guides in the area of the Giza pyramids etc.). Most probably, the “father of history” applied his usual authorial practice to this case as well: he combined and merged data from various sources, which he had collected at different stages of his researches, and unified them into a cohesive narration. The introductory statement about the priests’ all-inclusive account must be a fiction or an artful mise en scène, intended to ensure a uniform flow to this particular section of the work. Perhaps Herodotus was inspired from an emblematic technique of the Egyptian narrative tradition, which he has also adopted in other parts of his oeuvre: namely, framed narrative. The historian poses as a visitor to the temple of Memphis who listens to the local priests, as they unfold a sequence of didactic tales and memorable incidents concerning the pharaohs of times past; similarly, in Egyptian story collections, an internal character-narratee (the addressee of the frame narrative) listens to one or more personages-narrators, who tell him successive stories about ancient wizards, rulers, dignitaries, or other important figures.
The narrative materials that make up the Herodotean tales of the pharaohs are taken mostly from Egyptian traditions – not from factual record, though, but rather from folk legends, popularised myths, and historical novellas. Attention will be paid to certain sections whose Egyptian background (and its artful exploitation at Herodotus’ hands) has not been fully elucidated. The story about Sesostris and his brother’s murderous plot (2.107) takes off from the deeply-rooted Egyptian themes of court conspiracy and brotherly conflict. Possibly the genuine version of the legend was rounded off with the pharaoh’s supernatural or magical salvation; but the Greek historian rationalised the outcome, introducing a characteristically Herodotean moral dilemma into the storyline (cf. the choice of Intaphernes’ wife, 3.119). In the narrative about queen Nitocris and her revenge against the killers of her brother/husband (2.100), the age-old cosmogonic myth of Osiris, Isis, and Seth is debased to the level of mortal characters and human experience (a strategy that may be also traced in other Egyptian tales of Herodotus, such as Mycerinus’ incest with his daughter, 2.131). The dream of Sabacos, the Ethiopian conqueror, and his consequent voluntary withdrawal from Egypt (2.139) offers a parodic reversal of the tropes of the Egyptian royal novella (Königsnovelle) – a literary artifice exploited in several Egyptian historical fictions from the New Kingdom and the Late Period. Anysis’ artificial island (2.140) transplants to geographical space a fabulous motif of the Egyptian imaginary. Finally, Rhampsinitus’ descent to the netherworld (2.122) and Sethos’ supernatural victory over the Assyrians (2.141, another adaptation of Königsnovelle materials) are the only specimens of the well-loved Egyptian genre of fantastic tales that have been retained more or less intact in the historian’s largely rationalised account.

Studierende sind herzlich eingeladen, Wünsche bezüglich der Gastvortragenden oder auch bestimmter Themen zu äußern. Für Nachfragen zur Organisation der Gastvorträge sowie besagte Wünsche steht Sören Lipphardt zur Verfügung.