This volume takes as its focus an oft-neglected work of ancient philosophy: Aristotle's lost Homeric Problems. The evidence for this lost work consists mostly of 'fragments' surviving in the Homeric scholia - comments in the margins of the medieval manuscripts of the Homeric epics, mostly coming from lost commentaries on these epics - though the series of studies presented here puts forward a persuasive case that other sources have been overlooked. These studies focus on various aspects of the Homeric Problems and are grouped into three parts. The first deals with preliminary issues: the relationship of this lost work to the Homeric scholarship that came before it, and to Aristotle's comments on Homeric scholarship in his extant Poetics; the evidence concerning the possible titles of this work; and a neglected early edition of the fragments. Following on from this, the second part attempts to expand our knowledge of the Homeric Problems through an examination in context of quotations from (or allusions to) Homer in Aristotle's extant works, and specifically in the History of Animals, the Rhetoric, and Poetics 21, while Part Three consists of four studies on select (and in most cases disregarded) fragments. Collectively the chapters support the conclusion that Aristotle in the Homeric Problems aimed to defend Homer against his critics, but not slavishly and without employing allegorical interpretation; within the context of a renewed interest in Aristotle's lost works, the volume as a whole brings much needed illumination to a virtually unknown ancient work involving not one but two giants of the classical world.

This volume takes as its focus an oft-neglected work of ancient philosophy: Aristotle's lost Homeric Problems. The evidence for this lost work consists mostly of 'fragments' surviving in the Homeric scholia - comments in the margins of the medieval manuscripts of the Homeric epics, mostly coming from lost commentaries on these epics - though the series of studies presented here puts forward a persuasive case that other sources have been overlooked. These studies focus on various aspects of the Homeric Problems and are grouped into three parts. The first deals with preliminary issues: the relationship of this lost work to the Homeric scholarship that came before it, and to Aristotle's comments on Homeric scholarship in his extant Poetics; the evidence concerning the possible titles of this work; and a neglected early edition of the fragments. Following on from this, the second part attempts to expand our knowledge of the Homeric Problems through an examination in context of quotations from (or allusions to) Homer in Aristotle's extant works, and specifically in the History of Animals, the Rhetoric, and Poetics 21, while Part Three consists of four studies on select (and in most cases disregarded) fragments. Collectively the chapters support the conclusion that Aristotle in the Homeric Problems aimed to defend Homer against his critics, but not slavishly and without employing allegorical interpretation; within the context of a renewed interest in Aristotle's lost works, the volume as a whole brings much needed illumination to a virtually unknown ancient work involving not one but two giants of the classical world.

The philosophical and philological study of Aristotle fragments and lost works has fallen somewhat into the background since the 1960’s. This is regrettable considering the different and innovative directions the study of Aristotle has taken in the last decades. This collection of new peer-reviewed essays applies the latest developments and trends of analysis, criticism, and methodology to the study of Aristotle’s fragments. The individual essays use the fragments as tools of interpretation, shed new light on different areas of Aristotle philosophy, and lay bridges between Aristotle’s lost and extant works. The first part shows how Aristotle frames parts of his own understanding of Philosophy in his published, 'popular' work. The second part deals with issues of philosophical interpretation in Aristotle’s extant works which can be illuminated by fragments of his lost works. The philosophical issues treated in this section range from Theology to Natural Science, Psychology, Politics, and Poetics. As a whole, the book articulates a new approach to Aristotle’s lost works, by providing a reassessment and new methodological explorations of the fragments.

This is the first full-length volume in English that focuses on the historiographical section of the Mirabilia or De mirabilibus auscultationibus (On Marvelous Things Heard), attributed to Aristotle but not in fact by him. The central section of the Mirabilia, namely §§ 78–151, for the most part deals with historiographical material, with many of its entries having some relationship to ancient Greek historians of the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The chapters in this volume discuss various aspects of this portion of the text, including textual issues involving toponyms; possible structural principles behind the organization of this section; the passages on Theopompus and Timaeus; mythography; the philosopher Heracleides of Pontos; Homeric exegesis; and the interrelationship between pseudo-Plutarch’s On Rivers, a section of the historian Stobaeus’ Geography, and the Mirabilia. Historiography and Mythography in the Aristotelian Mirabilia is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of this text, and of Greek philosophy, historiography, and literature more broadly.

This book articulates a new approach to Aristotle's lost works by providing a reassessment and new methodological explorations of the fragments. The individual essays use the fragments as tools of interpretation, shed new light on different areas

In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term which in Greek literally means "making" and in this context includes drama - comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play - as well as lyric poetry and epic poetry). They are similar in the fact that they are all imitations but different in the three ways that Aristotle describes: 1. Differences in music rhythm, harmony, meter and melody. 2. Difference of goodness in the characters. 3. Difference in how the narrative is presented: telling a story or acting it out. In examining its "first principles," Aristotle finds two: 1) imitation and 2) genres and other concepts by which that of truth is applied/revealed in the poesis. His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, "almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions."

In this wide-ranging survey of ancient Greek narrative from archaic epic to classical prose, Alex Purves shows how stories unfold in space as well as in time. She traces a shift in authorial perspective, from a godlike overview to the more focused outlook of human beings caught up in a developing plot, inspired by advances in cartography, travel, and geometry. Her analysis of the temporal and spatial dimensions of ancient narrative leads to new interpretations of important texts by Homer, Herodotus, and Xenophon, among others, showing previously unnoticed connections between epic and prose. Drawing on the methods of classical philology, narrative theory, and cultural geography, Purves recovers a poetics of spatial representation that lies at the core of the Greeks' conception of their plots.