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E. Tsitsibakou-Vasalos, Ancient Poetic Etymology. The Pelopids: Fathers and Sons.

E. Tsitsibakou-Vasalos, Ancient Poetic Etymology. The Pelopids: Fathers and Sons.

Publié le par Bérenger Boulay

Evanthia Tsitsibakou-Vasalos, Ancient Poetic Etymology. The Pelopids: Fathers and Sons.


Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, coll. "Palingenesia. Schriftenreihe für Klassische Altertumswissenschaft" n°89, 2007, 264p.

Isbn(ean13) 978-3-515-08939-5. €52.00.

Recension par Michael Paschalis (University of Crete) dans Bryn Mawr Classical Review: 2008.07.58

Présentation de l'éditeur:

The potential of ancient Greek poetic etymologizing and its receptionin antiquity are analyzed with new interpretive models.
The author studies poetic etymology in a holistic and integrativemanner, as a tool of thematic and narrative unification. Selectpassages from Homer and archaic lyric poetry provide the matrix foretymological patterns; their validity is examined in an intertextualstudy of the names of Pelops and his kin.
This family exhibits a consistent naming system: the signifiers andsignifieds of its male members manifest a lexical and semanticaffinity; fathers and sons are linked with inherited linguistic andbehavioral bonds. Pelops is given a focal position on account of hispreeminence at Olympia and his polyvalent and polysemous name, in whichthe ambiguities and polarities of his mythic and cultic identity areembedded.


Associate Professor in the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, School of Philology, Department of Classics. Major areas of research and publication: Homer, Archaic Lyric Poetry and Poetic Etymology.