From polypragmon to curiosus : ancient concepts of curious and meddlesome behavior

Description

From Polypragmon to Curiosus is a study of how Greek and Latin writers describe curious, meddlesome, and exaggerated behavior. Founded on a detailed investigation of a family of Greek terms, often treated as synonymous with each other, and of the Latin words used to describe them, opening chapters survey how they were used in Greek literature from the 5th and 4th centuries BC, moving onto their Latin usage and relationship to that of Hellenistic and imperial Greek. Other chapters adopt a more thematic approach and consider how words, such as polypramon, periergos, philopragmon, and curiosus, are employed in descriptions of the world of knowledge opened up by empire - in discourses of pious and impious curiosity, in reflections on what constitutes useful and useless learning, and in descriptions of style. The themes which the volume addresses remain alive throughout the literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, most obviously through emblematic figures of human curiosity, such as Dante's Ulisse and Marlowe's Dr Faustus. Content: ""Preface"" ""Contents"" ""Abbreviations"" ""Introduction"" ""(1) Theme and Method"" ""(2) Principles of Inquiry"" ""(3) Significance and Synonymity"" ""(4) Structure and Parameters of Investigation"" ""(5) Some Key Texts"" ""1. Polypragmosyne and Periergia from Thucydides to Theophrastus"" ""(1) Introduction"" ""(2) Polypragmosyne and the Boundaries of Propriety"" ""(3) Aristotle and Political Polypragmosyne"" ""(4) The Individual as Polypragmon"" ""(5) Sykophants and Polypragmones in Rhetoric"" ""(6) The Aristophanic Polypragmon"" ""(7) The Philosopher as Polypragmon"" ""(8) Polypragmosyne and the Interventionist State""""(9) Peisetairos, Aesop, and Polypragmosyne"" ""(10) Demosthenes, Aristomedes, and Levels of Periergia"" ""(11) Theophrastus and the Periergos"" ""(12) Conclusion"" ""2. Translating Polypragmosyne"" ""(1) Introduction"" ""(2) Curiosus and Care"" ""(3) Pragma, Negotium, Cura"" ""(4) The Comic Busybody from Greece to Rome"" ""(5) The Careworn Lamb of the Aulularia"" ""(6) Curiosity and the Impulse to Research"" ""(7) Cicero on Being Curiosus"" ""(8) Translating Polypragmosyne and the Interventionist State"" ""(9) The Curiosi of Catullus, Horace, and Martial""""(10) Polypragmones, Periergoi, and Curiosi in the Ancient Novel"" ""(11) Conclusion"" ""3. Polypragmosyne and Empire"" ""(1) Introduction"" ""(2) Apodemia and the Pursuit of Wisdom"" ""(3) Polybius, Odysseus, and the Pursuit of Learning"" ""(4) Arrian on Alexander and the Gymnosophists"" ""(5) Diodorus Siculus and Imperial Polypragmosyne"" ""(6) Strabo, Pliny, and Imperial Geography"" ""(7) Imperial Geography and the Personality of the Emperor"" ""(8) The Emperor as Explorer and Polypragmon"" ""(9) Caesar at Vesontio�Cassius Dio and Thucydides""""(10) Conclusion"" ""4. Polypragmosyne and the Divine"" ""(1) Introduction"" ""(2) Impious and Fatal Curiosity"" ""(3) Apuleius on the Perils and Pleasures of Curiosity"" ""(4) Polypragmosyne and the Heavens"" ""(5) Conclusion"" ""5. Polypragmosyne, Periergia, and the Language of Criticism"" ""(1) Introduction"" ""(2) Periergos, Curiosus, and Literary Style"" ""(3) Polypragmosyne, Periergia, and the Problem of Useless Learning"" ""(4) Plato�s Lovers and the Problem of Polymatheia"" ""(5) Cicero, Seneca, and Polybius on Useful and Useless Learning""""(6) Varro, Archelaus, and the Curiosity of the Paradoxographer"" ""(7) Antigonus and the Aesthetic of the Paradoxographer"" ""(8) Conclusion"" ""Conclusion"" ""Bibliography"" ""Index Locorum"" ""Index"" ""A"" ""B"" ""C"" ""D"" ""E"" ""F"" ""G"" ""H"" ""I"" ""J"" ""K"" ""L"" ""M"" ""N"" ""O"" ""P"" ""Q"" ""R"" ""S"" ""T"" ""U"" ""V"" ""W"" ""X"" ""Z""