Rosen, Ralph

Profile Picture

Email Address

ORCID

Disciplines

Classics

relationships.isProjectOf

relationships.isOrgUnitOf

Position

Rose Family Endowed Term Professor of Classical Studies

Introduction

Ralph M. Rosen (B.A. in Greek and Latin, Swarthmore College, 1977; MA, PhD in Classical Philology, Harvard University, 1983) is the Rose Family Endowed Term Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His scholarly interests lie broadly in Greek and Roman literature and intellectual history, with particular focus on ancient comic and satirical poetic genres. He has published widely on archaic and classical Greek poetry, and has recently completed a new book about ancient poetic mockery and satire (Making Mockery: The Poetics of Ancient Satire, forthcoming Oxford University Press, 2007). Other interests within Classical Studies include ancient medicine and philosophy; much of his current work concerns the Hippocratic tradition and the 2nd-C C.E. medical writer, Galen.

Research Interests

Collection

Researcher profiles

Filters

Reset filters

Settings

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 40
  • Publication
    The Death of Thersites and the Sympotic Performance of Iambic Mockery
    (2003-01-01) Rosen, Ralph M
    One of the greatest frustrations confronting the student of archaic Greek poetry is the relative paucity of evidence about performance context. It is often lamented that if we only knew more about the conditions under which a work was performed, we would be in a much better position to understand its poetics - not only its meaning and function for a putatively "original" audience, but also the vicissitudes of its afterlife. Our frustrations in this regard are particularly acute in the archaic iambus - that infamous genre of satire and personal mockery - particularly because of its many transgressive conceits (e.g., aischrologia, abusive mockery, unelevated subject matter, etc.) have always made it difficult for critics to imagine why a poet would be moved to compose this sort of poetry in the first place, and who would want to hear it. If we knew a little more than we do about the circumstances in which iambographers composed and performed, and the particular relationships they expected to develop with an audience, we would presumably be in a much better position to assess cultural attitudes toward poetic satire and mockery, as well as the general dynamics that informed the composition of such poetry.
  • Publication
  • Publication
  • Publication
    Hipponax and the Homeric Odysseus
    (1990) Rosen, Ralph M
    Few will doubt that tracing Homer (and Homeric epos) on subsequent classical authors, in all its varied manifestations, has proved to be an enlightening critical enterprise. Indeed, it has become nearly impossible to consider the poetry of the so-called archaic lyric period without acknowledging at some level its relation to Homer and the epic tradition. It is a pity, therefore, that in this respect, as in so many others, Hipponax has been largely neglected except by those with specialized interests in the early Greek iambus, for Hipponax was clearly intrigued, as the fragments demonstrate, by the potential - particularly the comic potential - that Homeric style and narrative held for his own idiosyncratic poetry.
  • Publication
    Socratism in Galen's Psychological Works
    (2009-01-01) Rosen, Ralph M
  • Publication
    Galen, Plato, and the Physiology of Eros
    (2013-01-01) Rosen, Ralph M
    Eros and "the erotic' are terms generally applied to psychological and emotional states, but as most people know from personal experience, it can be small step from teh psychological to the physical. From ancient poetry to the pop songs of our own day, the effects of love on teh body have been well catalogues and long lamented, and in extreme cases the doctors have to be brought in. Greek medical writers have not left us copious clinical discussions of the physical consequences of eros, but they have certainly aware that an individual's emotional state could be prodoundly affect the body, and erotic desire was commonly implicated in a variety of physical pathologies. Just where - or how - these emotional state could profoundly affect the body was a constant puzzle for Green and Roman doctors, especially those whose materialist orientation encouraged them to map emotional states on to specific organs.
  • Publication
    Hipponax and His Enemies in Ovid's Ibis
    (1988) Rosen, Ralph M
  • Publication
    A Poetic Initiation Scene in Hipponax?
    (1988-07-01) Rosen, Ralph M
    In a note in Heph. 3.1 ( = Hipponax Testim. 21 Dg), Choeroboscus relates several etymologies of the term "iambos." The first is the familiar derivation from the mythical Iambe, the servant of the King Celeus of Elusis, who cheered up the grieving Demeter by mocking her. This story, well known to us from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (198-211), functioned as an ation of the ritual jesting and abuse practiced at the various festivals of Demeter, and, by extension, of the poetic genre known as iambos.1
  • Publication
    The Andreia of the Hippocratic Physician and the Problem of Incurables
    (2003-01-01) Rosen, Ralph M; Horstmanshoff, H.F. J
    One of the most enduring metaphors of Western medicine has been its conception of illness as an invasive enemy against which the patient and doctor must join forces to do battle. Indeed, the more invisible and mysterious the processes of disease, the more vividly do people seem to invoke the metaphor. So it is not surprising to find that in antiquity, when the etiology and control of disease was considerably more elusive than it is today, the notion of the body as a battlefield pervaded the medical treatises both implicitly and explicitly.1
  • Publication
    Trouble in the Early Career of Plato Comicus: Another Look at P. Oxy. 2737
    (1989) Rosen, Ralph M
    It has been nearly twenty years since the publication of P.Oxy. 2737, and the interpretation of lines 44-51 in particular still remains in dispute. These lines are especially vexing because they touch upon a wide range of issues, among them the early career of Plato Comicus and aspects of dramatic competition in fifth-century Athens. Four articles concerned with these lines have appeared in this journal alone over the past decade, and by now the central problems are familiar.1

DSpace software copyright © 2002-2026 LYRASIS