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The Language of Objects sheds new light on the sub-genre of Greek descriptive epigram, focusing on deictic reference as a springboard to understand three different approaches to the materiality of texts: imagination-oriented deixis, pointing to referents conjured in the reader’s mind; ocular deixis, addressing perceivable referents; displaced deixis, underscoring the subjective response of readers/viewers. Uniquely combining overlooked verse-inscriptions and well-known literary and inscribed texts, which are freshly re-examined through a cognitive lens, this volume explores the evolution of deixis in descriptive epigrams dating from the pre-Hellenistic period to Late Antiquity. With its original analysis, the book pushes forward the study of Greek epigram and current understanding of deixis in ancient poetry.
Price: $181.00
Pages: 324
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: Brill Studies in Greek and Roman Epigraphy
Publication Date:
01 November 2023
ISBN: 9789004545502
Format: Hardcover
"This is an ambitious book. It offers a broad survey of the mechanisms by which different forms of inscribed and literary epigrams communicate. It brings together some of the most important and well-known inscriptional and literary epigrams from antiquity alongside other less-discussed examples in order to offer new insights on the relationship between text and object. (...) the author capably explicates texts from a wide range of eras. The book offers an impressive range of material and useful reflections on the literary elements of ancient epigraphic poetry. Scholars working on ancient epigram and ancient ekphrasis would be advised to consult it."
Matthew Chaldekas in BMCR 2025.04.29
Matthew Chaldekas in BMCR 2025.04.29
Federica Scicolone, Ph.D. (2018), King’s College London, is a Research Fellow in Greek Language and Literature at the University of Pavia. She works primarily on Greek literary and inscribed epigram, and on the interaction between text and context.