Introduction

The present volume brings together eleven papers concerning various aspects of ancient literature and culture as well as Greek and Latin language. It is prefaced with an ode composed by Anna Szczepaniak on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of classical studies at the University of Silesia. In a paper dealing with Greek language Katarzyna Frąckiewicz examines the word d…dou, in recent scholarship considered as a poetical form of the present imperative both middle and passive. Katarzyna Lesiak takes on the relatively understudied phenomenon of sound instrumentation in Latin literature, illustrating her argument with examples taken from the masters of Roman epic: Lucretius, Virgil and Ovid. Aleksandra Musiał points to the parallels between the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh epic and the poetry of Homer. Damian Pierzak offers an interpretation of the myth of Apollo and Hyacinth in the light of some literary specimens of ancient Greek culture, most notably Antiphon’s Second Tetralogy. Jan Kucharski deals with some narrative patterns – with particular attention given to the motif of liberation and deliverance – shaping the plots of revenge tragedies of the Athenian playwrights (Fragment tekstu)