Hellenistic and Imperial Literature

• Coordinator
• Subject
• Main fields of research
• Members
• Associated members
• PhD Students

Coordinator

• Prof. dr. G.J. Boter
  Free University Amsterdam
• Prof. dr. R.R. Nauta
  University of Groningen

Subject

The research group studies Greek and Latin poetry and prose of the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire, with special attention to the ways in which the texts relate to earlier and contemporary literature and to the political, social and cultural context. Literature from the Hellenistic period onwards has a number of specific features, among which two are central to the concerns of the research group: (1) this literature looks back to a canon of past literature to which it reacts in various ways; (2) this literature is confronted by questions of ethnic identity and cultural authority, especially the relationship between ‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’. The research group fosters research addressing these issues, and for this reason combines the study of Hellenistic and Imperial literature, of Greek and Latin, and of poetry and prose. The research group has two main aims:

1. To produce editions and commentaries of texts for which these basic research tools are as yet insufficiently available.
2. To study the texts using the full range of approaches developed in linguistics and literary theory, and in historical and cultural studies, in order to do justice to the texts both as literary artefacts and as bearers of meaning for their ancient audiences.

Main fields of research

• Greek Hellenistic poetry
  Impulses from research on Latin poetry of the Early Empire are made productive for the study of the specific character of Greek Hellenistic poetry in its literary and historical context. Special attention is given to questions pertaining to intertextuality: by what means did the Hellenistic poets create a new poetry on the basis of the Greek poetry of the past?
• Latin poetry of the Late Republic and Early Empire
  The productive reception of Greek Hellenistic poetry in Latin poetry is a major focus of interest, but so is the response, in the so-called ‘Silver’ Latin poetry, to a Roman, mostly Augustan, canon. Another major interest is in the role of poetry in the political, social, and cultural fields, especially with respect to questions of cultural identity and the interactions between poetry and power.
• Greek prose of the Empire
  Greek prose-writers of the Early Empire often had close relations with cultural life in the capital of the Empire or were otherwise associated with leading figures in Rome, but at the same time tried to maintain their position in the Greek tradition; this tendency can be most clearly seen at work in the movement of the Second Sophistic, which harked back specifically to the Golden Age of Greek prose, the fourth century B.C. Accordingly, these texts are studied simultaneously from both points of view: what makes them part of the Roman world, and what singles them out as typically Greek?
• Latin prose of the Empire
  Authors such as Gellius and Apuleius actively participated in the Second Sophistic, and are much concerned in their work with the authority of the Greek and Roman traditions and the role of the intellectual. In the history of Ammianus Marcellinus, himself a Greek, the ‘Greek’ and the ‘Roman’ interact in various ways, but his work is important for many other reasons as well, and a large-scale phicological and historical
  commentary is being produced by members of the group.

Members

• J. Booth (UL)
• G.J. Boter (VU) 
• B.M.C. Breij (RU)
• H.-J. van Dam (VU)
• C.C. de Jonge (UL)
• J.-W. Drijvers (RUG)
• J.J. Flinterman (VU)
• M.A. Harder (RUG)
• V.J.C. Hunink (RU)
• M.H. Koenen (VU) 
• R.R. Nauta (RUG)
• E.M. van Opstall (VU)
• D. Rijser (UvA)

Associated members

• A. Ambühl (Groningen)
• L.J. ter Beek (RU)
• J. den Boeft (em. VU)
• M.P. Cuypers (Trinity College Dublin)
• A.M. van Erp Taalman Kip (em. UvA)
• D. den Hengst (em. UvA), W.H. Keulen (RUG)
• D.K. van Mal-Maeder (Lausanne)
• O.M. van Nijf (RUG)
• M.D.J. Op de Coul (Brill, Leiden)
• R.Th. van der Paardt (em. UL)
• S. Panagiotakis (Ghent)
• P.H. Schrijvers (em. UL)
• J.J.L. Smolenaars (em. UvA)
• R. Strootman (UU)
• H.C. Teitler (em. UU)
• N.M. Vos (VU)
• M. Zimmerman (em. RUG)

PhD Students

• J.Bilbija (VU)
• C.L. Caspers (UL)
• M.A.J. Heerink (UL)
• E. Ilyushechkina (RUG)
• C.M. van der Keur (VU)
• J.J.H. Klooster (UvA)
• R.H. van Meurs (RUG)
• J.J. den Otter, e.v. Oosterhuis (VU) 
• F. Overduin (RU) 
• P. Rose (VU)
• K. Stöppelkamp (RUG)