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The History according to Xenophon: historiography and uses of past

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Author(s):
Emerson Cerdas
Total Authors: 1
Document type: Doctoral Thesis
Press: Araraquara. 2016-06-15.
Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências e Letras. Araraquara
Defense date:
Advisor: Maria Celeste Consolin Dezotti
Abstract

The aim of this paper is the analysis of three Xenophon’s narratives, the Hellenica, the Anabasis and the Cyropaedia, questioning their traditional classification as a historiographical works. Considering the Historiography as a literary discourse, which manifests themselves linguistics and narratives structures, we seek to compare how Xenophon builds his narrative in autonomous and innovative way towards of genre tradition instituted by Herodotus and Thucydides. The Historiography, with the work of these authors, created a discourse itself about the past, establishing a specific way of working the recent history of Greek people. However, since Homer, the history was present in Greek literature through the myths that made narratives of the history of the Greeks. Thus, we understand that the presence of historical events in narrative form doesn’t guarantee, by itself, the generic framework as a historiographical work. What guarantees this framework is the very attitude of the author who organizes the events the historiographical way, updating the linguistic and narrative structures that make up the genre. Therefore, we understand that only Hellenica meet that requirement because, in this work, Xenophon acts as a conscious gender historian. Unlike, in Anabasis and Cyropaedia, although based on real events, the structure of these narratives is distant from that of historiography, presenting thereby new and innovative ways to work with the past in narrative form. The Anabasis is built as a narrative adventure and return in a intertextual relationship with Homer’s Odyssey, while in Cyropaedia Xenophon uses the past of the Persian king Cyrus to fictionalizing a leader model, creating a narrative that we call proto-novel. (AU)

FAPESP's process: 12/11106-1 - In view of the epic: the construction of the hero in the narratives of Xenophon
Grantee:Emerson Cerdas
Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate