Christiane Reitz (Universität Rostock): 1000 Schiffe oder 1186? Zur Poetik des Katalogs in antiker epischer Dichtung

Public keynote lecture at the International Summer Academy at the ZfL 2018: Epic and Episode

The lecture deals with the significance of lists and catalogues in Greek and Latin epics. The Homeric catalogue of ships in the second book of the Iliad is the first and most prominent example of a ›catalogue of troops‹, no epic in the following tradition renounces this structural element of narration. Lists and catalogues offer, however, in a special way, precisely because of their recognizability and their formal markings, the opportunity for generic experimentation, for transcending, stretching and gathering their materials, for self-reflection of the catalogue poet and for problematizing his instance of inspiration.

Christiane Reitz has been working as a classical philologist at the Heinrich Schliemann-Institute of Ancient Studies at the University of Rostock since 1999. She was trained at the Universities of Bonn and Heidelberg. Her work focuses on the ancient epic, the phenomenon of literary shortening (Epitomai) and the reception of ancient materials and themes in the art and cultural history of the Renaissance and Empire.