Ktiseis/aitia in various Ancient Greek prose authors
Item
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Title
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Ktiseis/aitia in various Ancient Greek prose authors
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:7cc3c800b2dc:11195
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identifier
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11570
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Creator
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McBreen, Paul M.,
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Contributor
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Jacob Stern
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Date
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2012
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Classical studies | Classical literature | aitia | Conon | Greek | ktiseis | ktisis | narrative
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Abstract
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In this dissertation, I focus on "ktiseis," Greek prose narratives about the founding of cities and the city founders. Also, I discuss "aitia," stories about causes, origins, and originators of various cultural customs, religious practices and even verbal expressions. I conclude eventually that these narratives served a purpose in creating unity among people who shared a language and, to use broad terms for now, a culture and history, and geographical territory they claimed as their own. I typically refer to these narratives together as ktiseis/aitia, because my research into the composition technique itself of these Greek prose narratives suggests that the narratives were composed with the assistance of a familiar schema, a regularly used template, uniform in its composition, that assisted researchers who were studying texts in order to compose their own versions of narratives.;With the assistance of Carol Dougherty's research, I have developed my Foundation and Etiology Narrative Schema (the Schema), the familiar template which I suggest forms the basis of ktiseis/aitia and other remembrance-based narratives. I describe the Schema thoroughly in the second chapter of this dissertation, especially as it appears in the mythographer Conon. The Schema assists in forming and cultivating relationships among peoples whose stories and histories are topics of these Greek narratives. These stories share such a familiar template that the people whose homelands and cultural identities are reflected and explained via the narratives become interconnected. This unity through mythical/historical narratives I develop throughout Chapter One. Chapter 3 explores the elements of the Schema both individually and in connection with one another. Thematic pairs and sequences of items are crucial to the efficacy of the Schema. The way in which the elements of the narrative structure combine to make meaning recalls Hayden White's discussion of literary tropes. The final chapter examines the Schema in a variety of prose authors to illuminate both its wide use and its centrality in remembrance-based narratives.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Classics
