bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Persona and the Addressee in Juvenal Satire 11
Authors: Jones F.M.A.
Published: August 2016

The approach to the Satires of Juvenal via the persona theory is well-known and has been productive. Somewhat less notice has been given to the fact that a considerable number of the satires have their persona moulded around another character, an addressee or an interlocutor, or sometimes an important narrative figure. Such characters ‘justify’ the persona, which can now be seen as a kind of ad hominem irony. This matter is intricately linked with the role of indignatio. Thus indignation, programmed in the first satire, becomes a little suspect in Laronia's mouth in the second. Laronia is a small scale character, but the techniques used in her regard appear again in the third satire, where the difference between Juvenal and Umbricius reveals the inadequacy of indignatio a little more clearly. The difference between the treatment of Crispinus and of Domitian in the fourth satire carries this process further. In the fifth, Juvenal tries to rouse the abject Trebius, but in his own apostrophe to Virro (Sat. 5.107f.) shows that indignatio is not, perhaps, appropriate at all. The role of indignatio diminishes further in the later satires, noticeably in the ninth, where Juvenal's tone is one of banter and Naevolus reveals his own unpleasantness. Much of this process has been charted by S. Braund in a book on the seventh, eighth, and ninth satires. The argument can be resumed with the eleventh satire where there is a further development. In the earlier satires which use address or dialogue there is an impressive realism in dramatic terms about the confrontation and psychology. In the eleventh (and even more, the twelfth) the development of the techniques of irony begins to intrude on the dramatic plausibility: the voice assumed in the poem becomes more aware of the audience as well as the addressee. As the beginning of a demonstration of this change I now provide an analysis of the use of Persicus in the eleventh satire.
Claudian: Court Poet as Artist
Authors: Gruzelier C. E.
Published: August 2016

Claudian was the last important poet of Rome, the more striking in his talent because of the lack of competitors in the age in which he lived. It is interesting to note that of the people who have actually read his works, most can find in them something attractive or entertaining enough to justify the effort. One example is the opinion of Gibbon:

If we fairly balance his merits and his defects, we shall acknowledge that Claudian does not either satisfy or silence our reason. It would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet of sublime or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart or enlarges the imagination … [but] he was endowed with the rare and precious talent of raising the meanest, of adorning the most barren, and of diversifying the most similar topics; his colouring, more especially in descriptive poetry, is soft and splendid; and he seldom fails to display, and even to abuse, the advantages of a cultivated understanding, a copious fancy, an easy and sometimes forcible expression, and a perpetual flow of harmonious versification.
Reading Tacitus' Tiberian Annals
Authors: Williams Bronwyn
Published: August 2016

It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

Henry James, Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne

History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember.

W.C. Sellar & R.G. Yeatman, 1066 And All That

As history Tacitus' Annals pose problems. On the one hand meticulously researched — on the other obfuscatory; self-avowedly unprejudiced and conspicuously prejudicial; evocative more than discursive; necessarily reliant upon the flawed historical tradition which they set out to correct. As historical epic they evidence rhetorical mastery and greatness of vision; a sense of dramatic moment and vivid rendering of character; a sense of history as dramatic process, seen through the eyes of contemporary and later observers. Moreover they engage the reader narratologically; point the distinction between Tacitus' insights and those of his occasionally self-deceived, subjective persona, ‘the historian’; signal a mechanism for interpreting the seeming distortions and inconsistencies of the text. This essay looks at six interrelated apsects of the Tiberian Annals, which elucidate Tacitus' purpose and vision as historical epicist, and which fix the rules by which the whole of the Annals are to be read and understood.
Love Plots in Menander and his Roman Adapters
Authors: Anderson William S.
Published: August 2016

It is a well known fact and problem for students of Plautus and Terence that the lack of corresponding Menandrian originals for the comedies known to have been adapted into Latin has forced us to operate with various conjectural theories about the amount and method of change introduced in their adapted plots by the Roman playwrights. We might have expected Donatus to have provided some help here, since he frequently cites the Greek lines that Terence altered in his own way, but Donatus proves remarkably disappointing when it comes to details of plot. There is, however, one passage in Menander's great admirer, Plutarch, which I suggest might be pressed somewhat into service, though cautiously, and it is my purpose here to discuss this passage and its potential utility.

Among the questions debated at banquets, Plutarch introduces one which, reviewing what drama and poetry best suit a dinner party, singles out Menander for special praise. His speaker, Diogenianus by name, expresses total admiration for Menander's style, for his excellent mixture of playful and serious, and his appropriate handling of the erotic material of his comedies. I am interested in the last point and the way Diogenianus elaborates upon it. For him, the important point is that, after a reading of Menander at a symposium, male banqueters are put in the right mood to go home to their own wives. I do not wish to pursue that chauvinistic topic, but rather to examine the scheme of Menandrian love plots which Diogenianus develops by way of explaining his thesis that Greek New Comedy possesses a special propriety for the average male banqueter.
Aristotle's Poetics and the Problem of Tragic Conflict
Authors: Gellrich M.W.
Published: August 2016

Despite the broad diversity in our century of views about tragedy, most critics show remarkable agreement about one point: that ‘conflict’ is a central defining characteristic of the form. Tragedy has repeatedly been discussed in terms of a struggle, which involves competing demands or forces that press in on man and shape his conduct. Although the structure of such a conflict has been variously formulated, in general it has been conceived in one of three ways: 1) as a psychological dilemma of inner decision-making, in which the hero must choose between opposing claims that he cannot mediate; 2) as a social collision between agents who hold to different but often equally valid ethical claims; 3) as a religious struggle implicating man in resistance against a force of divine necessity, such as fate, oracles, or the gods.

A wide host of influences could be marshalled to explain the development of popularity of these modern conceptions. Existentialism has had a hand in forming theories of tragedy that concentrate on crises of decision-making. Hegel's critical views of drama in theVorlesungen ueber die Aesthetikhave had an impact on the idea that tragic struggle emerges within the state and the potential competition between civic and familial obligations. And German Romantic critics, for example, Schiller and Schlegel, have made their mark on the notion that the tragic hero asserts his dignity against an external force of necessity threatening personal autonomy. But it has often been argued that these relatively modern influences are themselves derivative. According to many critics, theories of tragic conflict are ultimately indebted to Aristotle's Poetics. The Greek treatise is seen as the primary source for an idea that has by now become commonplace.
The Magic of Orpheus and the Ambiguities of Language
Authors: Segal Charles
Published: August 2016

Language is among the most mysterious of man's attributes. Its power not only to communicate truths about reality, but also to compel assent in the face of reality has often appeared miraculous, magical, and also dangerous. The marvel that mere words could impel men to the most momentous actions, and the admiration or fear that this fact inspires, are recurrent themes in classical literature. To express and understand this power Greek myth early framed the figure of Orpheus, a magical singer, half-man, half-god, able to move all of nature by his song. How that myth shifts in meaning and emphasis in representing that power is the subject of this essay. Though primarily concerned with classical writers, I shall also consider how a few modern poets used and transmuted this mythic material. My reading of the myth is both diachronic and synchronic. I attempt to study some aspects of its historical development and also to interpret it (especially in part I) as if all of its versions, taken together, form a contemporary statement about the relation of art and life.

Orpheus is a complex, multifaceted figure. For the ancients he is not only the archetypal poet, but also the founder of a mystical religion known as Orphism, with a well-developed theology, cosmogony, and eschatology of which much survives in hymns and short epics, mostly of late date. The ‘poetic’ Orpheus inevitably overlaps with the founder of Orphism, but it is the Orpheus of the poetic tradition that this essay discusses.
Virgil's Pastoral Echo
Authors: Boyle A. J.
Published: August 2016

The opening lines of the Eclogues are justly famous:
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagisiluestrem tenui Musam meditaris auena.(E. 1.1-2)Tityrus, you lie beneath spread of sheltering beechStudying the woodland Muse on a thin oat-straw.

Their rich, inviting allusiveness is well known. The sonal echo of Theocritus Idylls 1.1, the Callimachean canon (tenui, ‘thin’; cf. tēn Mousan leptaleēn, ‘the thin Muse’, Aetia fr.1.24 Pf.), the Lucretian siluestrem Musam (‘woodland Muse’) provoke the imagination, goad the intellect. Virgil's reference to his Roman predecessor especially intrigues. The context alluded to — Lucretius' ascription (DRN 4.577-89) of the fiction of satyrs, nymphs and the siluestris Musa of Pan to the echo-producing properties of rocky, solitary places — contains embryonically a theory of poetics, an evaluation of pastoral song, which, quickened into life in the Eclogues' initial statement, appears to be of programmatic significance. The theory — the viewing of pastoral poetry as essentially (to use Marie Desport's compelling phrase) ‘une poésie à écho’ — may be termed the echoic theory of pastoral song. Its main import is — as I take it — reductive: pastoral song is to be construed as the internal resonance of the singer's fictive world, condemned to triviality by its inability to reach beyond the boundaries of private experience or private vision so as to affect the world of action, events, history.
Theocritus and the Development of the Conception of Bucolic Genre
Authors: Van Sickle John
Published: August 2016

From our viewpoint, the bucolic genre begins with Theocritus, though ancient critics considered him not the founder but the best in a class. The difference between their perception and ours will serve to remind us that no idea of genre can be taken for granted. Generic conceptions, like any other products of literary work, have history. Implied in the work of poets, they are the practical marks of similarity and thus also touchstones of significant difference with respect to other modes of discourse in a period; and through time they measure continuity and change in a tradition. From the actual texts, however, critics abstract conceptions of genre according to the tastes, interests, received and new ideas — intellectual currency of their own time. Abstracted, then, and cast in simple and intelligible form, they begin a tralatitious life in ambivalent, quasi independent relation to their texts of origin. They do provide a ready general view of the material, but by this very virtue tend to substitute themselves for it. Ersatz, vicarious, they satisfy and misinform the reader, cutting off effective access to the texts. Useful, then, yet pernicious, go-betweens that get between, generic conceptions partake of the double nature of critical discourse, procuring insight and blindness, like somepharmakon, both good news and bad news.
Virgil's First Eclogue: Poetics of Enclosure
Authors: Putnam Michael C. J.
Published: August 2016

Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena; nos patriae finis et dulcia linquimus arva. nos patriam fugimus; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.

Tityrus, you reclining under the protection of a spreading beech, you ponder the sylvan muse on slender reed. We are leaving the bounds of our fatherland and our sweet fields, we are in flight from our fatherland. You, Tityrus, at ease in the shade, teach the woods to resound ‘beautiful Amaryllis’.

The literary historian must value the opening lines of the first eclogue for many reasons but their role in the development of the rhetoric of pastoralism is especially significant. For the first time in ancient pastoral poetry two intellectual worlds are in collision, seen in the characterizations of two shepherds only one of whom is finally settled in a landscape of permanence and continuity. Tityrus remains and Meliboeus is forced to depart. It is the elaboration and significance of Tityrus' setting that I wish to consider here. In a few deft strokes Virgil's Meliboeus creates a landscape of the mind, intellectualizing what Theocritus had left as enticing framework for song and establishing a stylistic principle that proves a powerful influence on all the poet's subsequent creative efforts.
Tacitus and Poetic History: The End of Annals XIII
Authors: Segal Charles
Published: August 2016

For classical antiquity the division between history and poetry is often arbitrary and misleading. The history-writing of antiquity not only subsumes what we would call political science, sociology, and psychology, but is also linked to epic poetry and to moral speculation on the good life and the good community. Just as Herodotus is not fully intelligible without Homer nor Thucydides without the tragedians, so not only Livy, but also Tacitus cannot fully be understood without reference to Virgil.

Like Gorgias or Apuleius, Tacitus also reminds us that the division between poetry and prose is more fluid in ancient than in modern literature. Scholars have long recognized Tacitus' debt to Virgil, especially in vocabulary and expression. Yet there is another, more elusive quality in Tacitus which is ultimately traceable to the influence of the great epic poet. This is the creation of an atmosphere around events which confers on them a weight, penetration, and richness of suggestion which the bare facts could not possibly convey.
Horace C. 3. 30: The Lyricist as Hero
Authors: Putnam Michael C. J.
Published: August 2016

Exegi monumentum aere perenniusregalique situ pyramidum altius,quod non imber edax, non aquilo impotenspossit diruere aut innumerabilisannorum series et fuga temporum. 5non omnis moriar multaque pars meivitabit Libitinam: usque ego poster acrescam laude recens, dum Capitoliumscandet cum tacita virgine pontifex:dicar, qua violens obstrepit Aufidus 10et qua pauper aquae Daunus agrestiumregnavit populorum, ex humili potensprinceps Aeolium carmen ad Italosdeduxisse modos. sume superbiamquaesitam meritis et mihi Delphica 15lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam.

(I have finished a monument more lasting than bronze and loftier than the pyramids' royal pile, one that no wasting rain, no furious north wind can destroy, or the countless chain of years and the ages' flight. I shall not altogether die, but a mighty part of me shall escape the death-goddess. On and on shall I grow, ever fresh with the glory of after time: so long as the pontiff climbs the Capitol with the silent Vestal, I, risen high from low estate, where wild Aufidus thunders and where Daunus in a parched land once ruled o'er a peasant folk, shall be famed for having been the first to adapt Aeolian song to Italian verse. Accept the proud honour won by thy merits, Melpomene, and graciously crown my locks with Delphic bays.) (Bennett)
Making Sense of Roman Poetry
Authors: Quinn Kenneth
Published: August 2016

Those of us whose subject is Roman poetry can feel there is life in the old dog yet. We need only point to the books which have appeared since the industry tooled up afresh after the second world war, just over a quarter of a century ago. I don't mean so much the new texts and commentaries, which after all cater for and circulate chiefly among those with a vested interest in the subject: their proliferation often seems to me a symptom of an Alexandrian age in classical studies more than a true renaissance. Or for that matter the host of new translations —a phenomenon more difficult to assess because of the way in which it is bound up with the economics of publishing. I mean the books which have been written to extend and renew our understanding of Roman literature. Their number is impressive, and each year there seem to be more of them. Many are good, and some have in fact renewed and extended our understanding. I make these my starting point since it is a reasonable assumption that the men who wrote these books had in mind an audience that wanted to understand Roman literature, an audience for whom the task of re-interpretation seemed worth while.

For it is generally agreed that interpretations of the classics, like translations, are short-lived. They last in fact about a generation. Then a style of writing dies, a shift in our capacity to respond dims old responses, brings new awarenesses, while the work we translate or interpret—I am speaking how of course only of the acknowledged masterpieces of Roman literature—remains infinitely meaningful. To each generation the major work appears to speak in a new language and to say new things, so that the translator has to say afresh what it said, and the interpreter to explain afresh what it meant. At the same time our understanding of the literary tradition, in which the individual major works form the high points, also changes.
Soracte Encore
Authors: Connor Peter
Published: August 2016

In a recent discussion of the Soracte Ode (Horace C. I, 9) Charles W. Lockyer insists on certain characteristics of the poem which he describes as follows: ‘Keeping in mind, then, the importance of the metaphor, I should like to approach the scene with a certain amount of dramatic emphasis. For Horace has really written a miniature scene, even though he casts it in the form of a monologue–a fact which is itself significant, as will be seen. … Rather we must pay close attention to the fact that the poem presents two real persons and not mere abstract sentiments decked out in elaborate imagery. … The dramatic quality of the poem should not be overlooked as it has in the past.’ (305). ‘Nothing better points up the difference between youth and age than the two people in this little play.’ (308).

There is a growing awareness that this poem does not present its true self if seen as a symbolic vehicle of philosophical maxims. In one way or another, we find the insistence that we are confronted by real people. Kenneth Quinn, without further discussion, had suggested inLatin Explorations(1963), 108-09, thatvides ut altais properly seen as a dramatic monologue. Lockyer, 305 n. 11, claims that the chief contribution of J. W. Rettig, ‘Dissolve Frigus: HoraceCarm. I, 9’,CB42 (1965) 19-23, was perceiving that two real persons are presented. David West,Reading Horace, taking up Quinn's suggestion placed an uneven stress on the setting (6, 10). Viktor Pöschl pays constant close attention to the speaker. Lockyer uses the termsdramaticandmonologue, but it is the former that he really finds in the poem, leading him to think of the poem as a play.
Sophocles' Praise of Man in the Antigone
Authors: McDevitt A. S.
Published: August 2016

The first stasimon of the Antigone is widely and justly acknowledged to be one of the finest of Sophocles' extant lyrical compositions. The praises of the achievements of man are set forth in language whose sheer power of diction and imagery imparts to the ode a tone of sincerity and conviction which is perhaps rivalled only by the praise of Athene in the first stasimon of Oedipus Coloneus. Just as that ode shows that Sophocles felt a real and abiding love for his native city, so too from this ode in Antigone we can see that he was deeply and genuinely impressed with the picture of the cultural progress of man as expounded by Protagoras. The power and the achievements of man made a great impact upon him, which is reflected in this ode. But just as the praise of Athens is not to be regarded in this light alone, as an independent song (for it has an intimate connection with the drama arising from its immediate response to the situation and from its wider implications for the action of the play as a whole), so also here, the praise of man in Antigone must not be treated as independent of the action of the play. For the choral ode stands, in the first place at least, as a response to the situation by a character involved in that situation, and as such it has an important contributory part to play in the total effect of the drama.
Talking About Greek Tragedy
Authors: McCaughey James
Published: August 2016

Greek plays were made in the theatre. We must watch our language when we talk about them, for we too are in the theatre. Most of us receive our critical training with works of art that are constructed and exist on the written page. We study word generating word, images interacting. And when we apply these techniques to plays we learn much; the way a playwright uses language, all the hidden things that make a play what it is. And some plays, an Ajax, or a Trojan Women, read so well that we are tempted to forget, or at least disregard that they were not in the first place made for reading. Not that the words are unimportant, but they point beyond themselves to realization in performance. They are as blueprints to a finished building.

This does not mean that the critic must spend his time filling the gap between text and production. He will too soon find himself lost in speculation or tangled in archaeological problems. Rather, whatever we say of the words of a play must be conditioned by the fact that they are words for the theatre. A play cannot be something that it could not be on the stage. A sense of what it was in performance is at the same time the starting point and the final criterion of our criticism.
Death and Immortality: A Study of the Heraclitus Epigram of Callimachus
Authors: MacQueen J. G.
Published: August 2016

Somebody mentioned your fate, Heraclitus, and he brought me to a tear; and I remembered how often we both made the sun sink in conversation. But you, my guest-friend from Halicarnassus, have, I suppose, been ashes for a very long time. But your nightingales are alive, on which Hades, plunderer of all things, will not lay his hand.

This epigram of Callimachus is one of the best known poems in Classical literature, but it suffers more than most from the misfortune of having to live permanently in the shadow of its own translation. It may no longer be the case that every schoolboy knows ‘They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead’, but it is certainly true that Cory's English version is much more widely known, and much more widely quoted, than Callimachus's Greek original. One result of this has been that a good deal of attention has often been given to comparing the two poems, but little time has been spent on examining the Callimachus as a poem in itself in an effort to see what its virtues are. One may occasionally find a few remarks on the restraint or simplicity of the Greek, as opposed to the English, or a note suggesting that Heraclitus of Halicarnassus, the poet to whom the verses are addressed, wrote a volume of verse the title of which was actuallyAēdones(‘Nightingales’) — hence the ‘nightingales’ of the second last line. Occasionally a commentator will go a little further. K. J. Mckay for instance remarks: ‘The high respect in which this epigram is held is fully justified. The way in which the thoughts spill over their barriers in the first four lines, the magic ofkatedusamen(suggestive of a communion of uncommon power), the skilful location of key thoughts (teon moron, katedusamen, aēdones), the pathos of an unknown grave and an abiding grief cannot but move us. Above all, the suggestion of unfathomable sorrow.’
Narration and Nutrition in Apuleius' Metamorphoses
Authors: Heath John R.
Published: August 2016

Unusual things are to happen to Lucius in Hypata. Since he finds himself lodged at the home of the town's foremost miser, he tactfully refuses hospitality and sets off to procure his own food for dinner. After a little bargaining, he manages to purchase some fish at a reasonable price – but life is not going to be that easy. He is spotted by an acquaintance from Athens who has confirmed the ‘Peter Principle’ by rising to the position of public overseer of the market. Pythias is wonderfully officious: when he learns how much the fish have cost his friend, he is outraged and immediately drags Lucius back to the fish-seller, scolds the miscreant merchant, and as a curious climax to his absurd performance:

et profusa in medium sportula iubet officialem suum insuper pisces inscendere ac pedibus suis totos obterere. qua contentus morum seueritudine meus Pythias ac mihi, ut abirem, suadens: ‘sufficit mihi, o Luci’, inquit, ‘seniculi tanta haec columella.’ his actis consternatus ac prorsus obstupidus ad balneas me refero prudentis con-discipuli ualido consilio et nummis simul priuatus et cena lautusque ad hospitium Milonis ac dehinc cubiculum me reporto.

Then he emptied the fish out of my basket and ordered one of the minor officials to jump on them and to trample them to smithereens. After which, this friend of mine, Pythias, smiling complacently at the rigour with which he fulfilled his duties, motioned me to depart.

‘I am satisfied, Lucius,’ he said. ‘That is enough reproof for the old scoundrel.’

Speechless and flabbergasted, I wandered off to the Baths, bereft of both food and money through this high-handed procedure of my judicious fellowstudent. I bathed and refreshed myself, and then returned to Mi1o's house, and into my bedroom.
Sophocles' Ajax and Euripides' Heracles
Authors: Barlow Shirley A.
Published: August 2016

Enkarterēsō bioton (‘I shall endure life’). So speaks Euripides' Heracles in a moment of crucial decision when he rejects the idea of suicide in spite of the horror he has been through and the subsequent shame he must live with. This moment expresses more than patient resignation; it is a calculated and positive decision to live on, a hard-made decision and perhaps a surprising one. Was Euripides here thinking of that other great hero depicted by Sophocles, Ajax, who had been through a similar experience of madness and had chosen the opposite course in consequence of it, namely to take his own life? Sophocles' Ajax was probably produced in the 440's, Euripides' Heracles about 418. It is scarcely credible that Euripides was not familiar with this great work of Sophocles. There were doubtless other plays on the theme of madness in between but Ajax would surely be particularly memorable as a well-known cult figure in Athens and elsewhere.

The similarities between the two tragedies are considerable. I want first to explore them, then show how the difference in treatment of similar themes, particularly those of aretē, madness and tukhē, make up the unique character of each play. Such a comparison starting from common focal points should serve to set in relief the distinguishing characteristics of each author's treatment.
Space and Scenery in Quintus of Smyrna, Claudian and Nonnus
Authors: Newbold R. F.
Published: August 2016

An important if limited contribution to the study of space and scenery in classical epic was made in 1976 with the publication ofEarly Epic Scenery: Homer, Virgil and the Medieval Legacy, by T. M. Andersson. Andersson's deliberate ignoring of the contributions of Hellenistic, Silver Age and late Greek and Latin epic are omissions which sometimes lead to distorted judgments. This article seeks to fill in part one of these gaps by examining spatial representation by three late writers of what might still loosely be termed epic.

Andersson argues that Homer has a relatively poor and primitive concept of organised, rational, visual space, wherein the composer concentrates on his characters' actions and words, rather than giving much of the background against which action occurs; topographical features and spatial relations and distances between objects and persons are often vague, arbitary or downright impossible unless surmounted (as they sometimes are) by divine intervention. Homeric emphasis is on how people feel and respond when they see something rather than on the observed scene, object or behaviour itself. Splendour, for instance, is normally conveyed not so much by elaborate description of the splendid article as by dwelling on the impression made upon the viewer. Wide or carefully sourced perspectives are rare, there being no general design within a clear framework, but amélangeof detail, very narrow, fragmentary viewpoints and insulated scenes. It is a world of kinaesthetic and emotional flux, a world orchestrated into being by sound or suggested by similes rather than painted on a broad canvas for careful scrutiny by the eye, and within which communication occurs, sometimes at impossible ranges, by noises rather than by sight. The sketchiness of Homer's description of Odysseus' house on Ithaca, for example, has caused scholars much difficulty in reconstructing its layout.
Admetus and the Triumph of Failure in Euripides' Alcestis
Authors: Bradley Edward M.
Published: August 2016

Elucidation of the imbricate ironies in theAlcestishas been an important dimension of much of the scholarship on the play during the past twenty five years. Another type of inquiry, best represented by the work of A. P. Burnett, has been the identification of typologies of plot and scene. Both approaches share, however, a common deficiency in the subjectivity of their analyses of character. Is Heracles ‘a big-hearted, stupid glutton and drinker’ (Beye) or ‘the one man in the world who does not pursue a hedonistic career’, the hero whose ‘cause is freedom, the freedom of spirit and freedom of action’ (Rosemeyer)? How are we to view Admetus' spontaneous proposal to commission a statue of Alcestis as a surrogate wife for his bed? Is this ‘a promise that is positive, delicately stated, and filled with a powerful meaning’ (Burnett), or is it ‘difficult to believe that a fifth-century audience would not have found the idea ludicrous and disgusting’ (Beye)? Is Alcestis ‘a tragic heroine’, one whose love for Admetus motivated her sacrifice (Barnes, Dale), or a rather cold figure, not above emotional blackmail (Beye)? Is Admetus ultimately guided to success by his ‘nobility’ (Burnett) or one whose person, apart from his vaguehosiotēs(‘piety’), offered no particular interest to Euripides (Dale)? A sampling shows that the discrepancy of critical perception is often so intense as to suggest the existence of an entirely new, exquisitely subtle facet of Euripidean irony which survives as a wilfully dolose legacy to the community of scholars.
A Statewide Characterization of Hospital Infection Control Practices and Practitioners
Authors: Booth Anita L. , Weeks R. Mark , Hutcheson Robert H. , Schaffner William
Published: August 2016

Selected features of infection control programs among the 163 general hospitals in Tennessee were surveyed in 1976 and 1979. Each hospital but one had a designated infection control practitioner. Three-fourths of the hospitals had fewer than 200 beds and most were in rural areas. The practitioners in these small hospitals worked in an isolated professional milieu: few (4%) had attended a basic training course or were members of a national (11%) or local (16%) infection control association. They also had significantly less access to standard infection control resource publications than did practitioners in large hospitals. Use of aqueous quaternary ammonium compounds for disinfection was reported by 37% of all hospitals in 1979; 68% of hospitals routinely performed bacteriologic cultures of personnel or the environment. In contrast, only 3% of hospitals did not have a policy specifying the use of sterile closed-system drainage of indwelling bladder catheters. Although these practices varied somewhat by hospital size, the differences were not statistically significant. Modest improvement in each parameter was noted since 1976. Pathology was the most common medical specialty (34%) among chairman of infection control committees; internal medicine and pediatrics accounted for only 13%. The practice of routine microbiologic monitoring was significantly more common among hospitals with chairmen who were pathologists. The implications of these findings for national priorities in hospital infection control are discussed.
Nosocomial Bacteremia in Perspective: A Community-Wide Study
Authors: Brenner Eric R. , Bryan Charles S.
Published: August 2016

Prospective surveillance of 1,527 episodes of bacteremia in the four major hospitals serving a community of 300,000 revealed striking differences among the hospitals. The rate of community-acquired bacteremia ranged from 1.9 to 6.8 per 1000 discharges; the rate of nosocomial bacteremia ranged from 0.9 to 9.8 per 1000 discharges. Death rates attributed to nosocomial bacteremias varied among the hospitals by as much as 40-fold. Nosocomial bacteremias were less frequent at two community non-teaching hospitals than at two teaching hospitals. Although fewer blood cultures were obtained at the nonteaching hospitals, the ratio of blood cultures obtained to deaths attributed to bacteremic infection was highest at these hospitals, suggesting that physicians recognized the importance of obtaining blood cultures in critically ill patients. The potential usefulness of bacteremia surveillance is reviewed. It is suggested that hospitals serving a single community might constitute an appropriate unit for such surveillance [Infect Control 1981: 2(3):219-226.]
Comparison of Injected and Oral Polio Vaccine for Booster Immunization During the 1979 Polio Outbreak in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Authors: Doe Robert G. , Kleger Bruce , Randall John L.
Published: August 2016

During a 1979 outbreak of poliomyelitis in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, we investigated the neccessity for and the response to booster vaccination of hospital personnel. The immune response of hospital employees who received booster injections of Salk vaccine (n=38) was compared with that of residents in the surrounding community who received Sabin trivalent OPV boosters (n=43). Serum neutralizing antibody titers to the three polio serotypes were measured before and after booster immunization. Results indicated that 38% of the subjects in both groups had low initial antibody titers. Salk vaccine was in all circumstances as effective or better than Sabin vaccine in increasing neutralizing IgG antibody titers [Infect Control 1981; 2(5):377-379.]
Investigation of an Epidemic of Multi-Drug ResistantPseudomonas aeruginosa
Authors: Murray Susan A. , Snydman David R.
Published: August 2016

Inter- and intrahospital epidemics of nosocomial infections due to gram-negative bacilli resistant to many antimicrobials have been well-documented. Prospective studies on the use of isolation along with epidemiologic analysis and appropriate environmental control have been lacking. In the six-month period from November 1978 to April 1979Pseudomonas aeruginosa(MDR) resistant to all antibiotics except amikacin was isolated from 15 patients. This organism had not previously been seen in our hospital. Epidemiologic assessment of infected patients revealed that nine of 15 patients had contact either with a previously infected case or contaminated area. All strains ofP. aeruginosawere identical by pyocin typing and antibiogram. The organism was present in an environmental reservoir, the urine graduated cylinder, and was found in three of eight receptacles (p = 0.002 vs. other environmental cultures). A case control study of patient risk factors showed aminoglycoside use, other antibiotic use, surgery, intravenous lines, Foley catheter use and mechanical ventilation to be no more frequent in cases than controls. The use of aminoglycosides in only 40% of cases suggests that antibiotic pressure was not the sole factor in perpetuating the epidemic.
Effective and Creative Surveillance and Reporting of Surgical Wound Infections
Authors: Kaiser Allen B.
Published: August 2016

Surgical wound infections offer a major challenge to hospital infection control programs. Surgical procedures and host factors are independent variables which markedly influence the risk of infection. Frequently used categories of surgical procedures (clean, contaminated, and infected) are inadequate to identify the special risks and problems of individual procedures.

In 1976, in conjunction with the practicing surgeons of a large, referral hospital, the Infections Control Committee instituted surveillance of selected clean surgical procedures and deep-versus-superficial wound infections. Major problems associated with the cleaning of sternal saws and the timing of the administration of prophylactic antibiotics have been detected by these methods. Conventional surveillance undoubtedly would have overlooked these problems. Effective surveillance and control of surgical wound infections requires a willingness to modify surveillance activities to meet the local needs, and a determination to include the operating surgeons in the planning of surveillance activities.
Quantitative Antibiogram as a Potential Tool for Epidemiological Typing
Authors: Flournoy D.J.
Published: August 2016

Forty stock, sink drain and clinical isolates of gram-negative bacilli were tested by broth microdilution against eight aminoglycoside antibiotics. Results show that quantitative antibiograms provide more information as epidemiological tools than qualitative antibiograms.
Comparison of Broth and Filtration Methods for Culturing of Intravenous Fluids
Authors: Longfield Jenice N. , Charache Patricia , Diamond Earl L. , Townsend Timothy R.
Published: August 2016

Ninety-six specimens of intravenous fluid solutions (D5/025 NS) were inoculated withS. aureus, E. coli, P. aeruginosa, K. pneumoniae, E. agglomerans, orC. albicansin concentrations of .1, 1, 10, or 102organisms/ml. They were cultured in tubes containing 5 ml of double enriched broth and after passage through a .45 μ pore membrane filter. After 24 hours of incubation, broth cultures were 68% as sensitive as the filter cultures (p<.001). At the lowest concentration (.1 organism/ml) broth cultures were only 45% as sensitive as the membrane filter technique after 24 hours of growth (p<.001). Membrane filters provide a rapid method to accurately detect and quantitate the presence of microbial contamination even at very low levels of concentration. The simplicity and accuracy of the filtration method offers the clinician a valuable adjunct in managing suspected cases of intravenous fluid related sepsis.
Special Report: Economic Incentives in Nosocomial Infection Control
Authors: Friedman Bernard
Published: August 2016

To a new student in this field, with a background in the economics of health care financing and insurance, there appear to be many challenging issues regarding: a) the efficacy of particular infection control measures; b) the calculation of economic benefit from particular measures; c) the determinants of the actual levels of expenditure on infection control and the measures actually adopted; and d) the rationale and pitfalls of regulatory standards such as those recommended by the Centers for Disease Control or adopted by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals.
Non-Gonococcal Ophthalmitis Associated with Erythromycin Ointment Prophylaxis of Gonococcal Ophthalmia Neonatorum
Authors: Mooney Barbara R. , Green Jon A. , Epstein Beverly J. , Hashisaki Peter A.
Published: August 2016

Substitution of erythromycin ointment for silver nitrate in the prophylaxis of gonococcal ophthalmia neonatorum (GON) was accompanied by eight infections in 749 (1.1%) well-born and 21 infections in 285 (7.4%) intensive care infants during an eight-month period. This was significantly higher than previous rates of ophthalmitis during the use of silver nitrate, 0.3% (5/1877) and 2.1% (19/904) for well and intensive care infants, (P<0.01). Multiple bacteria were isolated, polymicrobial infection occurred frequently and the pattern of bacterial isolates did not favor cross-contamination between infants. Observation suggested the frequent unintentional introduction of ungloved fingers into neonatal eyes during attempts to insert erythromycin ointment. Replacement of ophthalmic ointment with a liquid tetracycline preparation resulted in a decrease in non-gonococcal ophthalmitis to rates similar to the baseline period 8/997 (0.8%) for both nurseries. The increased number of infections appear related to the ointment vehicle, difficulty in its application and the mechanical introduction of bacteria. It is inferred that appropriate application of liquid medication also reduced the risk of inadequate prophylaxis.
Persistent Isolation of an UnusualPseudomonas SpeciesFrom a Phenolic Disinfectant System
Authors: Newman Kathryn A. , Tenney James H. , Oken Harry A. , Moody Marcia R. , Wharton Raynor , Schimpff Stephen C.
Published: August 2016

A well-characterized unusualPseudomonas speciescontaminated the piped disinfectant system of a newly-opened laminar air flow intensive care facility. This organism was frequently isolated (104-106cfu/ml) from phenolic diluted 1:256 in the system, and could also be recovered (0.01-0.2 cfu/ml) from undiluted phenolic. During the 20-month period when this unusual Pseudomonas was present, none of the severely compromised, granulocytopenic oncology patients treated in the intensive care facility were either colonized or infected with thisPseudomonas sp.Eradication of the organism from the system proved difficult and was accomplished by removing a contaminated reservoir of diluted phenolic disinfectant followed by transient cleansing of the system with very high concentrations (84,000 ppm) of chlorine. This experience demonstrates that phenolics should be added to the list of disinfectants which can harborPseudomonas spp.in the clinical setting.
Endotoxin Contamination of Foley Catheters Associated With Fevers Following Transurethral Resection of the Prostate
Authors: Gephart J.F.
Published: August 2016

In 1980 an investigation was conducted due to an apparent cluster of fevers following transurethral resections of the prostate (TURP), where the presence of prostatitis or urinary tract infections (UTIs) could not account for most cases, and the usage of antimicrobials did not prevent them. When unused, prepackaged, sterilized samples from 13 lots of triple lumen catheters were analyzed, four were found to contain high levels of endotoxin (ET), with a range of 49,150-≥ 6.25 ng/catheter. Additionally, these lots were highly pyrogenic to rabbits. The maximum incidence of febrile patients (42%) correlated with usage of catheters from the lot where ET levels were the highest. The febrile rate for a second urologist, who used single lumen catheters, was less (12/33 v 0/12). Further consideration should be given to sterile operative equipment which may still be pyrogenic.
Topics in Clinical Microbiology Flavobacterium Meningosepticum
Authors: Ratner Hilda
Published: August 2016

Flavobacterium meningosepticum, found as a saprophyte in water, soil and the hospital environment, has a relatively short history as a human pathogen. In 1944 Shulman and Johnson reported a case of meningitis in a premature infant due to an unidentified gram-negative bacillus. The term Flavobacterium meningosepticum for that organism was proposed by King in 1959 in her study of a group of previously unclassified bacteria associated with meningitis in infants. The termFlavobacterium—“yellow bacteria”—describes the yellow pigment often associated with members of this genus and meningosepticum describes the strains associated with infant meningitis. Although F. meningosepticum is not commonly considered a human pathogen, it has caused a variety of nosocomial infections including meningitis, postoperative bacteremia, and endocarditis. Most hospital outbreaks of F. meningosepticum infection involve meningitis in newborns and have been linked to environmental sources, mainly water-containing equipment. These outbreaks of neonatal meningitis tend to be severe with a high mortality rate and serious neurological sequelae in surviving patients.
Rotavirus Infection in Normal Nursery: Epidemic and Surveillance
Authors: Srinivasan G. , Azarcon E. , Muldoon M.R.L. , Jenkins G. , Polavarapu S. , Kallick C.A. , Pildes R.S.
Published: August 2016

Human rotavirus (HRV) epidemics have not been reported in normal full-term newborn nurseries in the US. This report describes an epidemic from April 27 to May 6, 1982 in which 23 infants were infected. Diagnosis was confirmed with Rotazyme (Abbott) in 82% (23/28 ) of the neonates screened. Five were asymptomatic; in the remaining 18 cases, the symptoms were usually mild and self-limited. Transient shedding of the virus was found in 8% (4/52) of personnel screened, and only one of them was symptomatic. Control measures included the following: strict cohorting, closure of transitional nursery, enteric precautions and wiping of horizontal surfaces with 95% ethyl alcohol which has been shown to be an effective virucidal agent for rotavirus in laboratories. Follow-up in 80 of 108 contact neonates born during the epidemic showed only two mildly symptomatic cases after discharge. During an 11-month period of surveillance, 33% of neonates (1,688/5,054) born at Cook County Hospital were screened for excretion of virus in stools; only 3.6% of infants (61/1,688) were positive by Rotazyme and none were symptomatic. This report suggests that strict measures are helpful in control of HRV epidemic gastroenteritis and asymptomatic shedding need not be as high as the previously reported incidence of 40% to 50%.
A Combined Program in Operation
Authors: Beideman Mary Ellen , Haas Rose
Published: August 2016

Within any hospital setting, an active employee health and infection control program working together can be an effective way of preventing the spread of any disease from patient to employee or from employee to patient. The two programs at Lehigh Valley Hospital Center have worked actively together since the hospital opened ten years ago and have successfully developed many systems for follow-up care of employees, including puncture wounds, blood exposures, and infectious diseases. Ongoing staff educational programs have been given to include personal hygiene, handwashing, and hepatitis. Although each department reports to a different administrator, this has not affected the overall effectiveness and operation of either department.