Poetic Language and Religion in Greece and Rome

This volume contains twenty-five contributions adapted from papers presented at the International Conference on Poetic Language and Religion in Greece and Rome, held at the University of Santiago de Compostela on 31tst May – 1st June 2012. The book fulfils two principal aims: to highlight the impulse and continuity of a research field that combines Indo-European and Classical Studies, which has generally been recognised for several decades as a very fruitful collaboration, and to provide the academic community with the current results of one of the most important topics of Classical Studies. The first part of the book focuses on the Indo-European tradition, tracking its remnants, particularly in the Classical languages. The Indo-European poetic tradition can be traced through linguistic reconstruction (formulae, onomastics) and some scattered mentions in literary texts. In the second part, the focus is placed on the poetic language in Greece and Rome. The rich and complex tradition of Classical literatures makes a clear-cut description of the inherited or innovative aspects of the religious and literary development more problematical. Ritual or cultic poetry, onomastics, phraseology, paeans and hymns, oracles as divine language, and magic all receive deep and thorough treatment from a reliable ensemble of scholars.