Hellenism and Literature

Hellenism and Empire explores identity, politics, and culture in the Greek world of the first three centuries AD, the period known as the second sophistic. The sources of this identity were the words and deeds of classical Greece, and the emphasis placed on Greekness and Greek heritage was far greater then than at any other time. Yet this period is often seen as a time of happy consensualism between the Greek and Roman halves of the Roman Empire. The first part of the book shows that Greek identity came before any loyalty to Rome (and was indeed partly a reaction to Rome), while the views of the major authors of the period, which are studied in the second part, confirm and restate the prior claims of Hellenism.

This comprehensive critique explores the relevancy of old discourses for contemporary narratives in ten Israeli novels. How the theory of deconstruction affects the future of a nation as presented in aspects of these literary texts is the focus of this book. The texts represent the meeting of ancient lore and modern narrative, as well as the conflict between a demanding past and the threat implied in an open future. The fragmentary quality of Israeli fiction denies the guarantee of unity and contravenes a fixed interpretative contextual discourse. The major tensions that call for a repositioning of critical standpoints underlie the textual contradictions that pose existential crises for their protagonists and an exciting challenge for the reader.

Classical allusion in James Joyce's work is staggering -- despite the fact that he knew no ancient Greek and had only a minimal grasp of its modern form. This book by R. J. Schork comprehensively examines the essential contributions of Greek language, literature, history, and mythology to the structure and comic aspects of Joyce's fiction.

Like Schork's earlier companion book (the study of Roman culture and Joyce), this work contains the same attention to philological detail, literary nuance, and cross-referencing of sources. And again, the overriding critical emphasis is on the culture and language of ancient Hellas as an essential component of Joyce's genius.

Schork's double expertise -- classical and Joycean -- reveals new dimensions in the allusive archaeology of the texts, especially in the puzzling verbal strata of Finnegans Wake. Throughout, Schork keeps his focus on Joyce, writing in an uncomplicated, lively style, translating everything, giving the entire context of the allusions, taking nothing for granted in terms of classical background. And, finally, concluding that Joyce's manipulation of the classics in general and Greek in particular was primarily for comic and/or scatological purposes.