We are very happy to invite to the Colloquium Balticum in 2021, which will take place on the 11-13 November 2021 in Vilnius, under the headline ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα: Reception, Translation, and Transfer of Homer’s Works Across Cultures. The one-hundredth anniversary of Jeronimas Ralys’ translation of Homer’s Odyssey into Lithuanian (1921) is an occasion preeminently suited for a revision of the reception of Homer’s works, their Wirkungseschichte in a variety of forms.

The conference will cover the following topics:

Cultural history: the image of Homer as the archetypical poet (Antiquity, Renaissance, Romanticism; Modern and Postmodern deconstruction of his image); Homer and Christianity; Homer’s epic poems and their narratives in visual arts and cinematography; Homer’s image in non-Western cultures; Homer in modern Greek culture.

History of Literature: development of Homeric images and themes in Ancient literature; Roman reception and imitation of the Homeric epic paradigm; reception and transformation of the Homeric themes in contemporary literature; Homeric epics as an object of literary criticism.

History of Philosophy: Homeric values and their evolution in the Ancient world; philosophical criticism and rehabilitation of Homer’s epic poems in Greek philosophy from the Presocratics to Neoplatonism; the transformation of philosophical analysis of Homer in Roman culture; allegorical and other possible readings of Homer’s epics.

Homer’s works in the national culture: the first translations of Homer into national languages, their issues, and reception; Homer’s epics as an aspect of national culture; the typology of translations and their development; the contemporary reader and the perception of the verse translation of epic poem.

Join the conference on ZOOM

Keynote

Edith Hall

The Reception of Achilles' Shield: Aesthetics, Politics and War

Professor in the Classics Department, King's College London

Her specialism is ancient Greek literature, but she enjoys putting the pleasure as well as the rigour into all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman history, society, and thought. Edith has now published thirty books, broadcasts frequently on radio and television, works as consultant with professional theatres, lectures all over the world, and publishes widely in academic and mainstream journals and newspapers. She is a world leader in the study of ethnicity, class and gender in ancient sources, of ancient theatre, and of the instrumentality of ancient ideas in world culture since the Renaissance.

Programme

Abstracts

Where?

The meeting will be held in the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University

The Faculty is located in the old campus of Vilnius University in the heart of Vilnius oldtown

Universiteto st. 5, Vilnius