The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition

by Margaret Alexiou, Dimitrios Yatromanolakis The Johns Hopkins Univers (Editor), Panagiotis Roilos (Editor)

Overview

Margaret Alexiou's The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, first published in 1974, has long since been established as a classic in several fields. This is the only generic and diachronic study of learned and popular lament and its socio-cultural contexts throughout Greek tradition in which a great diversity of sources are integrated to offer a comprehensive and penetrating synthesis. Its interdisciplinary orientation and broad scope have rendered The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition an indispensable reference work for classicists, byzantinists, neohellenists, folklorists, and anthropologists. Now a second edition, revised by Dimitrios Yatromanolakis and Panagiotis Roilos, has been made available. This new edition also includes a valuable up-to-date bibliography on ritual lament and death in Greek culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781461645481
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/03/2002
Series:	Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Margaret Alexiou is professor emerita of modern Greek studies at the Department of the Classics, Harvard University. Panagiotis Roilos is assistant professor of modern Greek studies at the Department of the Classics, Harvard University. Dimitrios Yatromanolakis is junior fellow in classics at te Society of Fellows, Harvard University.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Lament and Ritual
Chapter 2 Tradition and change in antiquity
Chapter 3 From paganism to Christianity
Chapter 4 Modern survivals
Part 5 Gods, cities, and men
Chapter 6 The ritual lament for gods and heroes
Chapter 7 The historical lament for the fall or destruction of cities
Chapter 8 The classification of ancient and modern laments and songs to the dead
Part 9 The common tradition
Chapter 10 Antiphonal structure and antithetical thought
Chapter 11 Conventions, themes, and formulae
Chapter 12 The allusive method

Editorial Reviews

Alexiou's work, originally published in 1974 by the Cambridge U. Press, continues to be recognized as the only general and diachronic study of learned and popular lament and its sociocultural contexts throughout Greek tradition. For the second edition, Yaromanolakis and Roilos (both classics, Harvard U.) have made some revisions to Alexiou's text while still preserving its original scholarly and ideological framework. The bulk of their contribution comes in the form of an extensive, up-to-date bibliographical supplement appended to the end of the first edition, listing resources from 1974 to 1998 on the ancient, medieval, and modern Greek lament, and on comparative, ethnographic, and ethnomusicological material. For classicists, Byzantinists, neo-Hellenists, folklorists, and anthropologists. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

The publication of this second edition by Rowman & Littlefield is very much to be welcomed. It has been sensitively revised by Dimitrios Yatromanolakis and Panagiotis Roilos, who have reworked some passages and clarified the wording of others, but carefully maintained the original structure and argument of the book....

Times Literary Supplement

The publication of this second edition by Rowman & Littlefield is very much to be welcomed. It has been sensitively revised by Dimitrios Yatromanolakis and Panagiotis Roilos, who have reworked some passages and clarified the wording of others, but carefully maintained the original structure and argument of the book.

Times Literary Supplement (UK)