Ancient Poetic Etymology

The Pelopids: Fathers and Sons

by Evanthia Tsitsibakou-Vasalos

Book cover: Ancient Poetic Etymology

Extent: 264 pages

Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag

Subjects: Classical Studies, Literary Studies

Series: Palingenesia

Series volume number: 89

Language: English

(Hardback) (Published)

(January 2007)

ISBN: 9783515089395

6.65 x 9.45 inches

Price: $77.00

In stock

The potential of ancient Greek poetic etymologizing and its reception in antiquity are analyzed with new interpretive models. The author studies poetic etymology in a holistic and integrative manner, as a tool of thematic and narrative unification. Select passages from Homer and archaic lyric poetry provide the matrix for etymological patterns; their validity is examined in an intertextual study of the names of Pelops and his kin. This family exhibits a consistent naming system: the signifiers and signifieds of its male members manifest a lexical and semantic affinity; fathers and sons are linked with inherited linguistic and behavioral bonds. Pelops is given a focal position on account of his preeminence at Olympia and his polyvalent and polysemous name, in which the ambiguities and polarities of his mythic and cultic identity are embedded.

  • By (author) Evanthia Tsitsibakou-Vasalos