From Homer to Hollywood, the western storytelling tradition has canonised a distinctive set of narrative values characterised by tight economy and closure. This book traces the formation of that classical paradigm in the development of ancient storytelling from Homer to Heliodorus. To tell this story, the book sets out to rehabilitate the idea of 'plot', notoriously disconnected from any recognised system of terminology in literary theory. The first part of the book draws on developments in narratology and cognitive science to propose a way of formally describing the way stories are structured and understood. This model is then used to write a history of the emergence of the classical plot type in the four ancient genres that shaped it - Homeric epic, fifth-century tragedy, New Comedy, and the Greek novel - with insights into the fundamental narrative poetics of each.

This Collection Of Essays Explores The World Of Vikram Seth With Critical Readings Of His Major Works. Seth'S Position In The Pantheon Of Indian English Writing, His Poetic Craft, His Responses To Contemporary Codes Of Relationships, His Notations As A Postcolonial Writer Living In And Writing About Various Countries, And His Politics Are All Examined Closely By The Scholars Who Have Contributed To This Volume. They Engage With His Works From Various Critical And Ideological Positions, From The Aesthetic To The Postcolonial To The Ecological. The Aim Of The Dozen Chapters In This Collection Is To Open Various Windows Into Seth'S World To Enhance The Reader'S Understanding And Appreciation Of The Work Of This Highly Talented And Most Accessible Writer.

"The most wide ranging and stimulating presentation of ancient and modern views on Plato's cosmological dialogue ever published. Highly recommended." David T. Runia, University of Melbourne --

Twelve academic essays, given during the Institute of Classical Studies research seminar in 2000 and 2001, examine Plato's vision of the `real world' as he presented it in Timaeus while considering the text's influence on classical philosophers and scientists. Specific subjects include astronomy, the reactions of Aristotle and others to Timaeus, Hellenistic musicology, Proclus' Commentary, comparisons with Aristotle's Physics and mythology.

Vol. 1 is "Roman life and letters." Studies presented to T. J. Haarho ff.

Current interpretations of Apuleius' 'Golden Ass' cover the entire spectrum from a religious autobiography to an incongruous collection of titillating stories. The goal of this book is to explain the extraordinary polyphony of Apuleius' novel as a product of the 2nd century CE context, in which elite culture (philosophy and sophistic oratory) and popular entertainment not only share the same venues and appeal to the same audiences but also engage in active exchange of subject matter and histrionic techniques. The book argues that Apuleius' narrative represents a mosaic of discourses each of which possesses a respectable pedigree in the world of Greco-Roman 'paideia'. It further traces the ensuing ambiguity to the Second Sophistic rhetoric and concludes that the particular thrill of reading the novel consists in the ironic frustration of any attempt to discover a centripetal force in an irreducibly multi-polar text.