Physiognomic signs and methods in archaic Greek literature: survey and analysis in the Iliad and Odyssey.

• Grant number: 23/17808-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: June 01, 2024
• End date: February 28, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Martins
• Grantee: Gustavo Henrique Carvalho Fagundes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/05682-0 - Physiognomic sense in epic characterizations: Philological review and and theoretical-methodological questions., BE.EP.MS

Abstract

The aim of this research is to study references to anatomical signs (sme)a) and methods (trópoi) of the art of "defining nature by appearance", the physiognomy, in Greek literature of the Archaic Period by means of a survey and analysis of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Physiognomonic methods stem from an ancient Mediterranean tradition, in which taxonomies of human anatomy have been textualised for prognostic and medicinal purposes. These textual sources include the attribution of appearance aspects to deities, physiological descriptions of illnesses and emotions, and animal similes with moral significance; all of which are also recurrent in literary portraiture in Greek literature from the Archaic and Classical periods. This research will analyse the descriptive structures and thematic patterns of the Iliad and the Odyssey based on the corpus of physiognomonic texts from Antiquity, considering the textual and archaeological evidences that attests to the complexity of the dissemination of the physiognomonic sense throughout the Mediterranean. In this scenario, the prominence of the Peripatetic treatise PhysiognMmonika (ca. IV - III BC) is outstanding for in addition to theorising the traditional methods that became popular in Hellenic culture, the text also presents topics of conceptual innovation, such as the concept of epiprepeia (a evident harmony): an aesthetic and subjective methodological solution. The epiprepeia concept will be investigated in formulaic expressions with semantic affiliation to the concept of prepon in the selected literary sources and in ancient theoretical texts. By means of the production of schematic glossaries and a full translation of the PhysiognMmonika, interdisciplinary results are expected.