Sphragis (literary Device)
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Sphragis (literary Device)
Sphragis (Latin, from Greek ''σφραγίς'' 'sphragis' a seal or 'signet') is a modern term in literary theory and classical philology used to describe a rhetorical device, literary device employed mainly in Ancient literature#Classical Antiquity, the classical world, in which an author names or otherwise identifies himself, most often at the beginning or the end of a poem or collection of poems. In the broader sense, it can refer to any technique when an author tries to hide his name or a reference to his identity in an encrypted manner (e.g. acrostic). The meaning of the word in the original literary contexts, however, is still not properly understood and the modern usage of the term may be historically inaccurate. One of the earliest uses of the word can be attested in Theognis (19ff) in a "highly controversial passage" in which the poet speaks of setting his seal on his verses, to protect them from being plagiarism, plagiarized: Let the ''seal'' [sphrēgis] of the wise man, ...
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Literary Theory
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social prophecy, and interdisciplinary themes relevant to how people interpret meaning. In the humanities in modern academia, the latter style of literary scholarship is an offshoot of post-structuralism. Searle, John. (1990)"The Storm Over the University" ''The New York Review of Books'', December 6, 1990. Consequently, the word ''theory'' became an umbrella term for scholarly approaches to reading texts, some of which are informed by strands of semiotics, cultural studies, philosophy of language, and continental philosophy. History The practice of literary theory became a profession in the 20th century, but it has historical roots that run as far back as ancient Greece (Aristotle's ''Poetics'' is an often cited early e ...
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Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the ''Eclogues'' (or ''Bucolics''), the ''Georgics'', and the epic ''Aeneid''. A number of minor poems, collected in the ''Appendix Vergiliana'', were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems as dubious. Virgil's work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory. Virgil has been traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His ''Aeneid'' is also considered a national epic of ancient Rome, a title held since composition. Life and works Birth and biographical tradition Virgil's biographical tradition is thought to depend on a lost biography by the Roman ...
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Sergey Esenin
Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin ( rus, Сергей Александрович Есенин, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ jɪˈsʲenʲɪn; ( 1895 – 28 December 1925), sometimes spelled as Esenin, was a Russian lyric poet. He is one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century, known for "his lyrical evocations of and nostalgia for the village life of his childhoodno idyll, presented in all its rawness, with an implied curse on urbanisation and industrialisation." Biography Early life Sergei Yesenin was born in Konstantinovo in Ryazan Governorate of the Russian Empire to a peasant family. His father was Alexander Nikitich Yesenin (1873–1931), his mother's name was Tatyana Fyodorovna (nee Titova, 1875–1955).
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Bohdan Ihor Antonych
Bohdan Ihor Antonych ( uk, Богдан-Ігор Антонич; 5 October 1909, in Nowica, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Nowica – 6 July 1937, in Lviv) was a 20th-century Ukrainian poet. In 1934 Antonych received third prize honours from the Ivan Franko Society of Writers and Journalists for his work ''Three Signet Rings''. Biography Antonych was born and raised in the Lemkos, Lemko village of Nowica, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Nowica where his father, Vasyl, was a parish priest. In 1928 Antonych left Nowica to study at Lviv University, where he remained until he received his degree in Slavic studies in 1933. In order to help finance his chosen career of professional writer, he occasionally worked as an editor for journals such as ''Dazhboh'' and ''Karby''. Antonych died from pneumonia on 6 July 1937. In October 2009, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a commemorative coin in his honor as a part of their "Outstanding Personalities of Ukraine" series. In his poetry he combines ...
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Magtymguly Pyragy
Magtymguly Pyragy ( fa, ''Makhdumqoli Farāghi''; tk, Magtymguly Pyragy; ; tr, Mahtumkulu Firaki; , born Magtymguly, was a Turkmen spiritual leader, philosophical poet, Sufi and traveller who is considered to be the most famous figure in Turkmen literary history. Magtymguly is the greatest representative of Turkmen literature, credited with the creation of Turkmen written literature, and whose literary form became a powerful symbol of the historical and the incipient national consciousness of the Turkmen people. He is part of a unique period in the cultural history of Central Asia, with his exceptional talent projecting his personal poetic synthesis onto the next generation of poets of the region. In a wider context, Magtymguly is often placed alongside major figures of the Turkic literary world such as Hoja Ahmad Yasawi, Yunus Emre, Ali-Shir Nava'i and Fizuli. Biography Early life and education Magtymguly was born in Haji Qushan, a village near the city of Gonba ...
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Turkmen Literature
Turkmen literature ( tk, Türkmen edebiýaty) comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Old Oghuz languages, Oghuz Turkic and Turkmen languages. The Turkmen people, Turkmens are direct descendants of the Oghuz Turks, who were a western Turkic people, who formed the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, Turkic language family. The history of the common Turkic literature spans a period of nearly 1,300 years. The oldest records of written Turkic languages, Turkic are found on runic inscriptions, of which the best known are the Orkhon script, Orhon inscriptions dating from the seventh century. Later, between the 9th and 11th centuries, a tradition of Oral literature, oral Epic poetry, epics, such as the ''Book of Dede Korkut'' of the Oghuz Turks—the linguistic and cultural ancestors of the modern Turkish people, Turkish, Turkmen people, Turkmen and Azerbaijani people, Azerbaijani peoples—and the ''Manas (epic), Manas Epic'' of the Kyrgyz people arose among the nomadic Tu ...
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Arabic Poetry
Arabic poetry ( ar, الشعر العربي ''ash-shi‘ru al-‘Arabīyyu'') is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, but oral poetry is believed to predate that. Arabic poetry is categorized into two main types, rhymed or measured, and prose, with the former greatly preceding the latter. The rhymed poetry falls within fifteen different meters collected and explained by al-Farahidi in ''The Science of ‘ Arud''. Al-Akhfash, a student of al-Farahidi, later added one more meter to make them sixteen. The meters of the rhythmical poetry are known in Arabic as "seas" (''buḥūr''). The measuring unit of seas is known as "''taf‘īlah''," and every sea contains a certain number of taf'ilas which the poet has to observe in every verse (''bayt'') of the poem. The measuring procedure of a poem is very rigorous. Sometimes adding or removing a consonant or a vowel can shift the ''bayt'' from one meter to another. Also, ...
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Amores (Ovid)
''Amores'' is Ovid's first completed book of poetry, written in elegiac couplets. It was first published in 16 BC in five books, but Ovid, by his own account, later edited it down into the three-book edition that survives today. The book follows the popular model of the erotic elegy, as made famous by figures such as Tibullus or Propertius, but is often subversive and humorous with these tropes, exaggerating common motifs and devices to the point of absurdity. While several literary scholars have called the ''Amores'' a major contribution to Latin love elegy, they are not generally considered among Ovid's finest works and "are most often dealt with summarily in a prologue to a fuller discussion of one of the other works". History Ovid was born in 43 BCE, the last year of the Roman Republic, and he grew up in the countryside of Sulmo. Based on the memoirs of Seneca the Elder, scholars know that Ovid attended school in his youth. During the Augustan Era, boys attended schools that f ...
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Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists.Quint. ''Inst.'' 10.1.93 Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus banished him to Tomis, a Dacian province on the Black Sea, where he remained a decade until his death. Overview A contemporary of the older poets Virgil and Horace, Ovid was the first major Roman poet to begin his career during Augustus's reign. Collectively, they are considered the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian described Ovid as the last of the Latin love elegists.Quint. ''Inst.'' 10.1.93 He enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, but the emperor Augus ...
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Odes (Horace)
The ''Odes'' ( la, Carmina) are a collection in four books of Latin lyric poems by Horace. The Horatian ode format and style has been emulated since by other poets. Books 1 to 3 were published in 23 BC. A fourth book, consisting of 15 poems, was published in 13 BC. The ''Odes'' were developed as a conscious imitation of the short lyric poetry of Greek originals – Pindar, Sappho and Alcaeus are some of Horace's models. His genius lay in applying these older forms to the social life of Rome in the age of Augustus. The ''Odes'' cover a range of subjects – Love, Friendship, Wine, Religion, Morality, Patriotism; poems of eulogy addressed to Augustus and his relations; and verses written on a miscellany of subjects and incidents, including the uncertainty of life, the cultivation of tranquility and contentment, and the observance of moderation or the " golden mean." The ''Odes'' have been considered traditionally by English-speaking scholars as purely literary works. Recent eviden ...
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Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ''Odes'' as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."Quintilian 10.1.96. The only other lyrical poet Quintilian thought comparable with Horace was the now obscure poet/metrical theorist, Caesius Bassus (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient Receptions of Horace'', 280) Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses (''Satires'' and '' Epistles'') and caustic iambic poetry ('' Epodes''). The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist Persius to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrin ...
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Georgics
The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek word , ''geōrgika'', i.e. "agricultural (things)") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose. The ''Georgics'' is considered Virgil's second major work, following his ''Eclogues'' and preceding the ''Aeneid''. The poem draws on a variety of prior sources and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present. Description and summary The work consists of 2,188 hexametric verses divided into four books. The yearly timings by the rising and setting of particular stars were valid for the precession epoch of Virgil's time, and so are not always valid now. Book One Virgil begins his poem with a summary of the four books, followed by a prayer to various agricultural deities as well as Augustus himself. It takes as its model the work ...
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