Academic literature on the topic 'Darès le Phrygien'

Se présentant comme témoin oculaire de la guerre de Troie, Darès le Phrygien est l’historien de référence du Moyen Âge latin sur le conflit troyen. Au XIIIe siècle, son ouvrage, De Excidio Troiæ, est traduit dans plusieurs langues vernaculaires, parmi lesquelles le français, le gallois ou l’islandais (ou norrois). Mais le récit de Darès vient rarement seul : on le trouve associé au récit romain, ainsi qu’à l’histoire des Bretons (les actuels Gallois), qui pensent à l’époque être d’ascendance troyenne. Dans cette étude, j’analyse les stratégies textuelles à l’oeuvre pour légitimer le transfert du récit darétique vers les langues vernaculaires et s’approprier ce récit par une nouvelle communauté textuelle, non latinisée. Ce travail se présente comme une étude comparée de ces trois corpus. Après une présentation du contexte d’écriture, des manuscrits, vient une analyse des sources et des manières dont elles sont employées par les traducteurs. Après une analyse des compilations, vient celle des stratégies textuelles internes, c’est-à-dire le traitement du texte de Darès, les modifications, l’explicitation des références, la figure du narrateur et les conceptions de l’histoire exprimées dans ces oeuvres. Je tâche de montrer ici que l’appropriation de la matière troyenne, si elle n’est jamais expliquée, provenait d’un intérêt spécifique pour le récit de Darès et l’histoire de Troie de manière générale
Presenting himself as an eyewitness of the Trojan war, Dares Phrygius is the reference historian of the Latin Middle Ages when it comes to the war of Troy. In the 13th century, his work, De Excidio Troiæ, wastranslated in many vernacular languages, amongst them French, Welsh and Norse (i.e. Icelandic). But the story of Dares seldom comes alone: it is often associated with the story of Romans or even of Bretons (i.e. Welsh), as they thought themselves then to be of Trojan ascent. In this study, I analyze the textual strategies at work in order to legitimize the transfer of Dares’s story towards vernacular languages and to appropriate this story by a new, unlatinized, textual community. This work presents itself as a compared study of these three corpuses. After a presentation of the context in which they were written and their manuscripts comes an analysis of the sources and their uses by the translators. After analyzing the compilations, I turn towards internal textual strategies, that is the treatment of the story of Dares, the modifications, the explanation of references, the role of the narrator and how history was conceived therefore in these works. In this study, I endeavor to show that appropriating the Trojan matter, even if the process is never made explicit in the texts, came from a specific interest for the story of Dares and more generally for the history of Troy

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Philosophische Fakultät--München--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, 1991.
Contient le texte latin "Daretis Phrygii De excidio Troiae historia" avec trad. allemande en regard.

Ce travail propose d’étudier l’un des nombreux textes médiévaux portant sur le mythe de la guerre de Troie. Transmis à l’Occident médiéval non pas par le biais d’Homère mais par celui des classiques latins et de certains auteurs de l’Antiquité tardive, ce mythe connut un immense succès en Europe durant tout le Moyen Âge, malgré l’ignorance du grec et de l’Iliade. Nous avons choisi d’éditer partiellement et de commenter l’un des plus importants monuments de la matière troyenne médiévale, texte presque inédit aujourd’hui, car totalement délaissé depuis la Renaissance et le retour aux textes anciens. Dans une introduction, nous avons exposé les principes de notre travail d’édition, c'est-à-dire listé les différents manuscrits utilisés par l’éditeur précédent (Nathaniel Griffin), puis surtout présenté notre manuscrit de base, le Cod. Bodmer 78, absent de la liste des manuscrits collationnés par Griffin. Puis nous avons consacré un chapitre à la langue du texte, un latin médiéval très lisible quoiqu’empreint de « modernismes », notamment au niveau du lexique. Puis, après avoir présenté le texte, sa langue et notre méthode d’édition, nous avons exposé le peu d’éléments que nous avions sur notre auteur, sa vie, son œuvre et le contexte intellectuel au milieu duquel il évolua dans la Sicile du XIIIe siècle, ainsi que l’engouement européen pour la matière troyenne qui explique son choix de reprendre ce grand mythe dans son Historia. Enfin il nous a fallu évoquer les nombreuses sources utilisées par Guido delle Colonne, ses sources directes, indirectes ou inavouées. En dernier lieu, nous avons offert un résumé de chaque livre édité et traduit. Suit une bibliographie détaillée sur les manuscrits et éditions anciens de ce texte, des manuels, le contexte culturel et historique en Europe et en Sicile au Moyen Âge, les textes grecs, latins et vernaculaires se rapportant à la guerre de Troie et ayant influencé notre auteur de près ou de loin, les ouvrages critiques sur le traitement de cette matière troyenne dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge, et enfin les quelques éléments bibliographiques portant sur Guido et sur son œuvre. Vient ensuite notre édition-traduction. La traduction est accompagnée d’un double apparat : un apparat des sources et réminiscences ainsi qu’un apparat critique qui prend en compte et compare les leçons contenues dans notre manuscrit de base avec les variantes citées par l’éditeur précédent dans les quelques manuscrits qu’il a utilisés. Au bas de la traduction, figurent des notes d’érudition destinées aux noms ou des faits cités dans le texte et qui méritent une explication. Après cette partie introduction philologique et édition, la deuxième grande partie de cette thèse consiste en un commentaire et des annexes. Dans notre commentaire, nous avons souhaité interroger notre texte dans ses aspects narratologiques, thématiques, génériques, linguistiques et idéologiques. C’est pourquoi nous avons consacré un premier chapitre à l’étude narratologique du texte, son contenu, son agencement, ses techniques narratives, son utilisation des sources et ses principales thématiques. Dans une seconde partie, nous avons abordé le genre et le ton de cette Historia, qui se veut un texte historique quoique traitant une matière fictionnelle puisque mythologique à une époque où les genres littéraires ne sont pas encore définis et encore moins cloisonnés ; nous avons en outre longuement commenté et illustré le choix de l’écriture en prose et en latin à une époque où la mode est au vers et au vernaculaire. Enfin, notre troisième chapitre porte sur le contenu scientifique, politique et idéologique de ce texte truffé de parenthèses érudites et morales. En dernier lieu, nous avons proposé une édition diplomatique de la partie non éditée ni traduite du manuscrit, ainsi que des annexes sur les manuscrits et le vocabulaire, et bien sûr des index des noms propres et un glossaire des mots rares ou surprenants
This work proposes to explore one of the many medieval texts on the myth of the Trojan War. Transmitted to medieval Europe not through Homer but by the Latin classics and some authors of late Antiquity, this myth was a huge success in Europe during the middle Ages, despite the ignorance of the Greek and the Iliad. We chose to partially edit and comment on one of the most important monuments of the medieval Trojan material, almost unpublished text today because totally abandoned since the Renaissance and the return to the ancient texts. In an introduction, we exposed the principles of our editing work, that is to say, listed the various manuscripts used by the original publisher (Nathaniel Griffin) and especially presented our basic manuscript, Cod. Bodmer 78, absent from the list of manuscripts collated by Griffin. Then we have a chapter on the language of the text, a medieval Latin highly readable although full of "modernism", particularly in terms of vocabulary. Then, after introducing the text, the language and our editing method, we exposed the little things we had on our author, his life, his work and the intellectual context in which he evolved in thirteenth century Sicily, and the European craze for the Trojan material explains his choice to take this great myth in his Historia. Then, we had to mention the many sources used by Guido delle Colonne, its indirect or direct or unacknowledged sources. Lastly, we provided a summary of each book published and translated. Then follows a detailed bibliography on manuscripts and old editions of this text, textbooks, historical and cultural context in Europe and Sicily in the Middle Ages, the Greek texts, Latin and vernacular related to the Trojan War and that influenced our author near or far, the critical works on the treatment of this Trojan material in antiquity and the Middle Ages, and finally some bibliographic elements on Guido and his work. Then comes our edition-translation. The translation is accompanied by a double pageantry: one for the sources and reminiscences, and a critical apparatus that considers and compares the lessons contained in our manuscript with basic variants cited by the previous editor in some manuscripts that he used. At the bottom of the translation include scholarly notes for names or facts mentioned in the text and deserve an explanation. After this introduction and part philological edition, the second major part of this thesis consists of a comment and annexes. In our review, we wanted to examine our text in its narratological, thematically, linguistic, generic and ideological aspects. That is why we have devoted the first chapter to the narratological study of the text, its content, its layout, its narrative techniques, use of sources and its main themes. In a second part, we discussed the type and tone of the Historia, which intends to be a historical text while attending a fictional material since mythological, at a time when genres are not yet defined and less compartmentalized; we have also commented extensively and illustrated the choice of writing in prose and Latin at a time when fashion is to poetry and vernacular. In the end, our third chapter focuses on the scientific, political and ideological content of this text peppered with parentheses and moral scholars. Finally, we proposed a diplomatic edition of the unedited or translated part of the manuscript, as well as appendices on manuscripts and vocabulary, and of course the name index and a glossary of rare or surprising words

The First Pagan Historian traces the reception history of a text that is now largely neglected but once occupied a central role in the ancient canon—the De excidio Troiae historia or History of the Destruction of Troy of one Dares Phrygius, who claimed to have been an eyewitness observer of the Trojan War. From late antiquity (when most scholars today now agree that the extant Latin version of the text was written) to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, this study charts the many surprising twists and turns in the afterlife of an author long considered the first of the pagans to write history. It examines the subversive challenge that Dares posed to other ancient canonical traditions (especially the poetry of Homer and Virgil), and the manner in which Dares’s bold rewriting of the Troy story enabled centuries of postclassical readers to forge their own—sometimes radical—visions of the distant past. In doing so, The First Pagan Historian moves back and forth between the ancient world itself and various moments in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The book uses the fortunes of a forged text to interrogate approaches to history, fiction, myth, philology, criticism, authorship, and numerous other topics of profound importance to the interplay between antiquity and modernity.

Chapter 1 begins with an examination of the early medieval encyclopedist Isidore of Seville, who christened Dares Phrygius the first pagan historian. It then moves back in time to consider the likely origins of the Destruction of Troy, and how those in both its supposed and actual milieux of composition (i.e., classical Rome of the first century BCE and late antiquity) defined the nature of history (historia) and distinguished history from fiction or fabula. It also discusses authors whom Dares co-opted, such as the ostensible translator of his text, the Roman historian and biographer Cornelius Nepos, and those whom he challenged (via claims of Aeneas’ treachery), such as the poet Virgil. Finally, it examines numerous attempts—by everyone from Hellenistic chronologers and Nepos himself to early Christian scholars like Eusebius and Jerome—to date the Trojan War and incorporate it into universal history. It argues that both the primacy assigned to autoptic history and the world historical significance assigned to Troy played signal roles in Dares’ afterlife.

Chapter 5 looks in closer depth at just why Dares remained a source of debate in early modern Europe, even after some critics had seemingly demolished him once and for all. The first part of the chapter examines phenomena traditionally associated with the rise of criticism and the downfall of forgeries, including print culture, the recuperation of ancient Greek texts, and scientific empiricism. It argues that these phenomena actually bolstered the reputation and credibility of Dares Phrygius. From the Elizabethan Philip Sidney’s neo-Aristotelian poetics to the proliferation of printed reference works by Conrad Gessner, Jean Bodin, and others, Dares remained a canonical first in the history of history. The second part of the chapter examines how, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, both the increasingly professionalized world of classical scholarship and the confessional polemics engendered by the Reformation and Counter–Reformation responded to this perpetuation of Dares’ longevity with renewed attacks.

Abstract This chapter examines how the afterlife of a forged ancient history can illuminate post hoc constructions of antiquity and its ostensible beginnings. It takes as its case study the medieval and early modern reception of the De excidio Troiae historia or History of the Destruction of Troy of pseudo-Dares Phrygius. Although in reality a late antique forger, this “Dares” claimed to have been an eyewitness observer of the Trojan War and Troy’s fall; so many in the medieval and early modern periods considered him no less illustrious a figure than the first pagan to write history. This desire to locate such an authentic “first” in the ancient historical record helped guarantee Dares’ enormous popularity: his History appeared in numerous manuscripts and printed editions. From Isidore of Seville in the seventh century to Thomas Jefferson in 1800, this contribution summarizes the long history of Dares’ rise and fall, and the varieties of antiquity desired by his defenders and critics alike.

The Introduction opens with broad reflections on the place of forgery, criticism, and debates over textual authenticity in the reception of Greco-Roman antiquity, whether in Renaissance Europe or today. It surveys recent literature on forgery and antiquity and also discusses the ongoing presence of moralizing language and polemic in works of ostensible dispassionate criticism. It then introduces readers to the text at the center of this book—Dares Phrygius’ De excidio Troiae historia or History of the Destruction of Troy—and discusses antecedents for works of this nature in the Second Sophistic. Thereafter, it examines Dares’ ambiguous place at the intersection of history, myth, and literary fiction, arguing that modern means of distinguishing among these concepts (such as the Weberian theory of “disenchantment”) are unable to explain the motivations of both Dares’ critics and believers. The remainder of the Introduction discusses issues of method, situating The First Pagan Historian within current trends in intellectual history, book history, and classical reception studies.