Philologisches Seminar

Violence

Violence is a topic that plays a much greater role in ancient literature than modern reception would suggest. Reflections of ancient discourses on violence can be found in a multitude of Roman authors; the exemplary studies listed below refer to the poetry of Catullus from the late Republic and to Lucan's civil war epic Pharsalia, written in the time of Nero, which confronts research with great challenges due to its excessive treatment of the topic. At the same time, the object of investigation of violence in literature reveals how fruitfully post-classical narratology is able to integrate models from other fields of knowledge and neighboring disciplines into its own systematics, in this case results from empirically based sociology regarding subjectively experienced time within processes of violence ("Gewaltzeit", Sofsky).

Bibliography (selected)

On Violence:
  • Nill, Hans-Peter (2018), Einleitung, in: ders., Gewalt und Unmaking in Lucans Bellum Civile. Textanalysen aus narratologischer, wirkungsästhetischer und gewaltsoziologischer Perspektive (= Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology 27), Leiden, Boston: Brill, 1–86.
  • Sofsky, Wolfgang (1997), Gewaltzeit, in: von Trotha, Trutz (ed.), Soziologie der Gewalt, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 102–121.
On Violence in Ancient Texts:

  • Kirstein, Robert (2017), Gewaltzeiten. Violence in an Erotic Landscape: Catullus, Caesar and the Borders of Empire and Existence (carm. 11), in: Lara O’Sullivan/Luca Asmont/Michael Champion (eds.), Cultural Perceptions of Violence in the Hellenistic World, London/ New York: Routledge, 191–207.

  • Möller, Melanie (2020), Gegen / Gewalt / Schreiben. De-Konstruktionen von Geschlechts- und Rollenbildern in der Ovid-Rezeption, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.

  • Nill, Hans-Peter (2018), Gewalt und Unmaking in Lucans Bellum Civile. Textanalysen aus narratologischer, wirkungsästhetischer und gewaltsoziologischer Perspektive (= Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology 27), Leiden, Boston: Brill.

  • Nill, Hans-Peter (2019), Zur ‚Ent-Fernung‘ des Heroischen und Nicht-Heroischen bei Lucan, in: Angelika Zirker/Nicolas Potysch (eds.), Ambige Helden. Helden. Heroes. Héros. Special Issue 6, Freiburg, 57–65.

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