Wonder and the Marvellous from Homer to the Hellenistic World by Jessica Lightfoot
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
Reviewed by: Wonder and the Marvellous from Homer to the Hellenistic World by Jessica Lightfoot Maria Gerolemou Wonder and the Marvellous from Homer to the Hellenistic World. By Jessica Lightfoot. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2021. Pp. x, 260. Lightfoot's objective, described in the prologue, is to "open up the subject of ancient wonder as a more comprehensive and coherent field of inquiry in the modern world for the first time" (2). The author discusses various facets of thauma from Homer to the Hellenistic period to highlight its importance both as an aesthetic response and as a philosophical and literary tool. While this approach to wonder is not completely novel, Lightfoot's study on the role that thauma plays in the relationship between the human and the divine, animate and inanimate, near and far, familiar and unfamiliar provides interesting insights. The book does not offer a chronological reading of thaumata; it rather functions as a Wunderkammer, that is, as a repository for various wondrous objects, events, etc., and reveals connections between the uses of thauma in different periods, authors, and genres. [End Page 370] The second and fourth chapter discuss thauma as a model of aesthetic response. To this well-studied aspect,1 the author adds a spatial and a temporal dimension: aesthetic thauma in Plato, she argues, when describing something which is "hidden" and lies "inside," such as the intellect, can prolong perception and lead to curiosity and cognitive advancement (see Theaetetus); on the other hand, thauma which refers to outer appearance is a temporary feeling of bedazzlement (see Charmides). In ekphrastic descriptions of objects, on the other hand, the split between outside and inside collapses: the exterior of the objects described, which are either god- or man-made (see, e.g., Achilles' shield in the Iliad; gems in Posidippus' epigrams), is admired due to its mimetic power, which can go as far as reproducing internal animative forces (e.g., motion). Now, it seems that both the ekphrastic and the philosophical wonder externalise the technê and skills of an artisan or intellectual. The fourth chapter explores cases of acoustic marvels which manage to blur the boundary between the animate and inanimate, gods and mortals. While both chapters offer some interesting insights, a theoretical discussion on the aesthetics and perception of viewing (thauma idesthai) and hearing (thauma akousai), which could have strengthened their arguments, is missing.2 The third chapter is dedicated to the genre of paradoxography, and discusses both the "textual thaumata" found in the Hellenistic library and the oddities of the natural world. According to the author, paradoxography is not about providing enough evidence around a wondrous observation; what guarantees the wonder's veracity in a paradoxographic discourse is the reference to the initial observer of the thauma. The chapter responds convincingly to previous scholarship on paradoxography that describes the genre as merely "popular" rather than scientifically oriented3 by emphasizing exactly the effort of paradoxographers to create "new bodies of purely textual marvels" (57). The chapter also examines how the Herodotean thôma and Aristotle's concept of wonder influence the paradoxographic wonder. The argument presented here is not entirely new.4 The Herodotean type of wonder, argues the author, fosters curiosity about distant lands, customs, objects, etc., that are unfamiliar to Greeks, and tests the boundaries between belief and disbelief, in the same way later paradoxographers do, but unlike Herodotus, they do not present their own judgement on the credibility of thauma. The Aristotelean wonder, moreover, provides the paradoxographer with the material itself. The paradoxographer selectively presents some of these wonders, without giving any context, i.e., without offering "the complicated reasoning which the philosopher builds up to explain away an apparent inconsistency or anomaly" (74). This increases thauma since it recreates for the reader the moment when the quoted author first observed, for instance, "strange and inexplicable zoological specimens or processes" (78). [End Page 371] Chapter Five, which explores wonder both as "an emotional and cognitive response" to recognition (108), is the most stimulating part of the book. Starting with a discussion of the famous scene of the Lytra and the mutual social recognition between Priam and...
Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.
Comment cette classification a été obtenuedéplier
Prédiction machine sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Le volet Gemma est une étiquette directe du modèle pour chaque travail de la base, lue sur la notice réduite au titre. Le volet Codex est un classifieur appris des 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et calibré sur les taux pondérés de l'échantillon; les champs sans appui suffisant ne portent aucun appel Codex. Le mode candidate est l'union des deux volets; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont pas des étiquettes humaines.
Scores du classifieur distillé par catégorie (deux têtes)
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,000 | 0,001 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,001 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,001 | 0,001 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,003 | 0,003 |
| Communication savante | 0,003 | 0,004 |
| Science ouverte | 0,001 | 0,002 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,001 | 0,004 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,009 | 0,002 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule source (Gemma direct ou Codex distillé), pas un consensus.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».