bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Reading Cynthia and Sexual Difference in the Poems of Propertius
Authors: McCoskey Denise E.
Published: August 2016

‘she is always and never the same’(advertising slogan for ‘Contradiction’, a ‘fragrance for women’ by Calvin Klein, 1999)

In the first poem of his second book, Propertius presents an emphatic declaration of his status as a love poet, slyly incorporating a detailedrecusatioto Maecenas, who he claims has requested that he compose epic instead. Later in the poem, Propertius' preference for elegy over epic seems to be echoed by the predilections of his lover Cynthia, who, as Propertius insists, finds the entireIliaddistasteful. According to Propertius, Cynthia's aversion to the poem emerges from a very specific source: the epic's primary female protagonist, Helen. For, as Propertius recalls it, Cynthia disapproves of the whole epic precisely because she finds fault with its ‘leuis’ heroine:si memini, solet ilia leuis culpare puellas,/et totam ex Helena non probat Iliada(‘If I remember, she is accustomed to castigate mutable women and does not approve of the wholeIliadbecause of Helen’, 2.1.49f.).
Versions of Slavery in the Captivi of Plautus
Authors: Thalmann William G.
Published: August 2016

‘Noble’: the invariable response of readers and critics of the Captiui. Read almost any modern work on this play and you will not have to wait long for that word. Up it pops, reflexively. The slave Tyndarus' readiness to stay in captivity, risking and in the event undergoing a gruesome punishment to free his master Philocrates, the master keeping his side of the bargain and returning to Aetolia to redeem Tyndarus in exchange for Hegio's son Philopolemus when he could as easily have stayed home (why should he care about a slave?)—surely actions that reflect refinements of character and feeling so unlike the routine skulduggery of New Comedy. We all know Lessing's famous eulogy on this play. That was determined by his own personal and cultural situation. But most critics in this century, to judge from the regularity with which they cite the Epilogue, agree with Lessing that this is a play in which ‘the good become better’ (ubi boni meliores fiant, 1034).
The Panegyrics of Domitian in Martial Book 9
Authors: Garthwaite John
Published: August 2016

The rich diversity of Martial's Epigrams makes up, in Duff's words, ‘one of the most extraordinary galleries of literary pictures, vignettes, miniatures, portraits, caricatures, sometimes almost thumbnail sketches' of the Classical Age. Yet the books are by no means merely random or haphazard assortments. Like other Roman poets, Martial was attentive to the need to impose a sense of order and continuity on his published material. Naturally the very number of poems, as well as their varied inspiration and often impromptu composition, would militate against any overall thematic coherence. Moreover, Martial was also keen to exploit the inherent variety of the epigrammatic genre; thus, in the preface to Book 8, he says that he has interspersed more trivial and jocular material among his panegyrics of the emperor to prevent continuous eulogies from becoming tiresome to their recipient.
Textual Strategies and Political Suicide in Flavian Epic
Authors: McGuire Donald T.
Published: August 2016

When one tries to characterize the Flavian epics as a group, one encounters a series of chronological and historical problems not faced in many earlier eras of Latin literature. For example, though we know the rough outline of literary history from the death of Nero to the accession of Trajan, precise details regarding the lives of Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus elude us — we know most about the career of Silius, thanks in large part to Pliny the Younger's letter noting his death, charting his career, and to a large degree dooming his reputation for posterity.

Despite Pliny's letter, and despite several references in Martial to Silius, the exact chronology of the Punka's publication is impossible to reconstruct. Martial's poems suggest that Silius was at least reading from his work during the early 90's AD, and a publication date from the mid-90's to around 100 seems probable; that is as far as we can go. The same problems face us with the works and careers of Statius and Valerius. Regarding Statius, we know that the Thebaid was published in the early 90's AD, before Statius moved on to his Sitvae and unfinished Achilleid. For Valerius' Argonautka there is even less evidence; arguments for the date of his epic's composition span two decades, between AD 70 and 92.
Monarchal Power and Imperial Politics in Statius' Thebaid
Authors: Dominik William J.
Published: August 2016

Power, like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer, it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation. Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, no man good enough, to be trusted with unlimited power.

Charles Colton,Lacon

Thebaidis about power. On this cardinal themeThebaidreflects, its focus emphatic, its message incisive. (Virtually) every event is related in some way to the unfavourable aspects of the exercise of power. Prominent is the issue of its pursuit and abuse, the consequent suffering and impotence of its victims. As Statius observes of monarchal power in connexion with Adrastus, the least objectionable regent inThebaid, agit miseranda potestas inuigihre malis(‘distressing power compels him to be vigilant against ill fortune’, 8.262f.).
Statius' Thebaid: A Glimmer of Light in a Sea of Darkness
Authors: Hill D.E.
Published: August 2016

This essay was largely completed before I had an opportunity to read Professor F. Ahl's contributions to Statian scholarship inANRW. In those two essays there is to be found an extensive survey of the negative judgements accorded to Statius in general and to theThebaidin particular, scholars have united in assuming that Statius' flattery of Domitian is either sincere or merely servile and that his epic has nothing to say about the world in which he lived. By challenging both these assumptions in an extremely trenchant and, I believe, convincing way, Professor Ahl has prepared my ground for me and I do hope that any reader who feels that the thesis of this paper must be unsound because of what we ‘know’ already about Statius will consult Professor Ahl first. On the other hand, while I do think that the recently traditional view of Statius as, at best, an escapist and, at worst, a toady is unsustainable, I do believe that Professor Ahl is, from time to time, guilty of over-interpreting and I think that there must be some danger that critics who can see the excesses in some of the details of his position will imagine that they can safely ignore his far more important fundamental point. In this piece, I intend to explore the first book of theThebaidin the light of its models, especially theAeneid, not because that is a method that will reveal all there is in the book but because it is possible to apply reasonably rigorous tests of plausibility. At a later time and elsewhere I hope to pursue this kind of analysis both to the rest of the epic and in relation to other sources. It is also my view that Statius presented his material in a particular order for his own good reasons and that it can be unhelpful, as many do, to rearrange the material in the hope of revealing some novel insight.
Human Knowledge and Self-Deception: Creon as the Central Character of Sophocles' Antigone
Authors: Shelton Jo-Ann
Published: August 2016

Sophocles' Antigone has been a play of wide and enduring popular appeal. Ironically, however, it is also one of the most controversial of ancient Greek tragedies, and its many admirers have seldom reached agreement in their interpretations of the play. Consequently an enormous body of scholarship exists, presenting a bewildering array of opinions on just about every conceivable aspect of the play. And one major area of dispute has been the identification of the central character(s). For many modern readers and viewers, Antigone has emerged as the sentimental favourite because she has been perceived as a champion of human rights which transcend political obligations and as a martyr to individualism and personal integrity, attractive qualities in these days of social regimentation. Her relentless defiance of an authority she believes wrong, her unswerving defence of a tradition she believes right, and her willingness to die for her beliefs have gained her the sympathy of modern audiences. Knox has suggested that Antigone's refusal to compromise is an indication of her ‘heroic temper’, and he, as well as other critics, has argued that she is the ‘hero’ of the play.
Virtvs and Pietas in Seneca's Hercvles Fvrens
Authors: Lawall Gilbert
Published: August 2016

Anna Lydia Motto and John R. Clark in their recent article on Seneca's Hercules Furens sought to refute what was becoming the orthodox approach to the play — an approach based on Aristotelian poetics and the view that Hercules' madness is a natural phenomenon arising from a tragic flaw, usually identified as pride and ambition. A long list of scholars have contributed to this orthodox approach, which was most fully articulated by Jo-Ann Shelton, who saw Hercules' madness as ‘an internal, psychological development.’ In Shelton's very negative view of Hercules, ‘pride and ambition motivate [his] actions. And madness is an extension of his boastfulness.’ According to Shelton, ‘through [Juno's] words, we learn of, even as they are occurring, the progressive stages in the development of Hercules' pride, ambition and madness.’ This ‘naturalistic’ interpretation of Hercules' madness may appeal to twentieth century psychological critics, but it fails to account for the literary tradition behind the figure of Juno in Seneca's play, and in failing to do so it accepts at face value her allegations that Hercules is an ambitious, overreaching adventurer intent on storming the heavens. Motto and Clark rightly perceive that Hercules is ‘persecuted’ by Juno and persecuted ‘not for what he does,’ but ‘for what he is’ (that is, the bastard offspring of her husband's latest amour with a mortal woman) and that the play is not a story of ‘the abuse of strength and the growth of destructive pride,’ but ‘the story of deliberately oppressed and maligned greatness.’
An Analysis of Seneca's Medea
Authors: Fyfe Helen
Published: August 2016

Seneca's Medea exhibits its protagonist in a world — it seems — without justice, a victim of the broken faith of Jason and Creon, of a cultural isolation resulting from the Argonautic expedition, a prisoner of her past actions. During the play Medea develops ‘a freedom of indifference’ through her scelus, her ‘crime’: the killing of Creon and Creusa, the destruction of Corinth, the murder of her children. Medea achieves this freedom from the ties of the world, not by killing her children, the objects of her love, but by destroying her love for Jason which makes those children and all else in life of value. In the following analysis of the play particular attention is given to the development of the figure of Medea. Attention is also given to the evolution of the verbal, imagistic, symbolic and ideological patterns which clarify the significance of that development and the tragedy's thematic focus.
The Sinful Nature of the Protagonist of Seneca's Oedipvs
Authors: Poe Joe Park
Published: August 2016

The two best-known essays on Seneca's Oedipus, by Willy Schetter and Gerhard Müller, argue that the play is fundamentally a tragedy of fate, and Müller goes so far as to call fate the ‘principal actor.’ Although it may be possible to question the importance that Müller attaches to the role of fate, it is clear that the universe of Oedipus is a determined one. Not only have Oedipus' murder and marriage been predestined, but the plague and its consequences have as well. If, however, fate's control of Oedipus' actions is indisputable, it is linked with a fundamental difficulty of interpretation: that of Oedipus' guilt, which the play in the end seems emphatically to affirm (see 875f. and 1025f. and below, pp. 149f.). What does it mean to speak of moral responsibility in the absence of free choice? The notion of Oedipus' guilt would seem particularly hard to reconcile with a Stoic interpretation of the play; for Oedipus' conscious intent is virtuous, and Stoicism judges action according to the will of the agent, not its result. The view that Oedipus is innocent, moreover, appeals to our own moral logic, with its individualistic bias. Yet in the end Oedipus himself is convinced of his guilt; otherwise his self-mutilation would be unintelligible. It is at least evident that Seneca is bringing prominently to our attention a conception of wrong-doing that cannot be understood in terms of Stoic ethics.
Dissonant Sympathy: Song, Orpheus, and the Golden Age in Seneca's Tragedies
Authors: Segal Charles
Published: August 2016

Orpheus has a prominent place in the choral odes of Seneca's Medea, Hercules Furens, and Hercules Oetaeus (the last, even if not by Seneca, may be considered within the context of Senecan drama). Outside of the tragedies, Seneca has only a passing reference to Orpheus as the figure with whom poetry begins (Ep. 88.39). In the tragedies he treats Orpheus as a magical poet-savior and a civilizing hero. In contrast to Virgil and Ovid, to whose versions of the Orpheus myth he clearly alludes, he deliberately de-emphasizes the brutal death at the hands of the Thracian maenads.

Seneca draws on the double focus of the myth in the earlier tradition. On the one hand Orpheus is the consummate poet who knows the mysteries of nature and through his art stands in special sympathy to it. On the other hand as a victim of love and the furor it may bring, he is also a tragic figure who through passion experiences loss, mourning, and death. In this latter aspect the Hercules Oetaeus contrasts his end unfavorably with the future apotheosis of its hero (H.O. 1035); but, as we shall see, Seneca elsewhere takes a more favorable attitude to the poet-hero.
The Third Book of the Aeneid: From Homer to Rome
Authors: Putnam Michael C. J.
Published: August 2016

By comparison with the acclaim they have lavished on its neighbors, critics have devoted minimal attention to the Aeneid's third book. Though a continuation of Aeneas' narrative to Dido, dealing now with events subsequent to his retreat from Troy, it appears to lack the emotional intensity of the second book's focussed account of the collapse of the hero's homeland. The initial segment of his tale is a study in concentration, centered on one time and place. The conclusion seems diffuse by comparison. The most Iliadic book of the Aeneid, topographically organized around the breaching and destruction of Troy, is followed by the most Odyssean. We can easily dismiss such a string of episodes, bridging the considerable distance from Ilium to Carthage, as Virgil's attempt to enliven geographical inevitability with the hero's exposure to incipient history. Aeneas must reach Dido during the book's course, but he must also learn more of Italy and Rome.
The Georgics as Description: Aspects and Qualifications
Authors: Connor Peter
Published: August 2016

Within the structural economy of the Georgics there are a number of short sections or episodes. One of the most surprisingly abrupt, for example, is those few lines that are Virgil's equivalent of Hesiod's Days:

Ipsa dies alios alio dedit ordine Luna felicis operum. quintam fuge: pallidus Orcus Eumenidesque satae; tum partu Terra nefando Coeumque Iapetumque creat saevumque Typhoea et coniuratos caelum rescindere fratres. ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam scilicet, atque Ossae frondosum involvere Olympum; ter pater extructos disiecit fulmine montis. septima post decimam felix et ponere vitem et prensos domitare boves et licia telae addere. nona fugae melior, contraria furtis. (G.1.276-286)
From Hesiod to Homer by Way of Rome
Authors: Wender Dorothea
Published: August 2016

I have several times in the past given my students the following oversimplified scheme. Each of Virgil's three works was based on a Greek original: the Eclogues on the Idylls of Theocritus, the Georgics on Hesiod's Works and Days, the Aeneid on Homer's two epics. The difference among these Greek poets (I used to say in my opinionated way) is that while Theocritus was a very fine poet, and Homer of course a genius, Hesiod was only mediocre; therefore Virgil depended on him less and was able to be freer and more genuine in the Georgics than in the Eclogues or the Aeneid. And that, I used to conclude, is why only the Georgics surpasses its model, and justifies Dryden's description of it as the most perfect poem by the most perfect poet.

After spending some time working with the literary sources of the Georgics, I am still inclined to the same final conclusion, that the Georgics is Virgil's masterpiece. I have, however, come to some new observations about the relation of the Georgics to its literary predecessors, which may help in a small way to illuminate the poem.
Men in Love: Aspects of Plato's Symposium
Authors: Penwill J. L.
Published: August 2016

Plato's so-called ‘middle period’ saw the composition of what are generally agreed to be his finest philosophical dramas, and of these the Symposium is usually singled out for special praise. Yet it is only recently that serious attempts have been made to approach the Symposium as a work of literature rather than a philosophical treatise. Those who employ the work as a source-book for Platonist doctrines rarely venture beyond Socrates' dialectical refutation of Agathon and his report of what Diotima told him (199c-212b); and if they do, it is to point out the logical or perceptual fallacies — i.e. the philosophical deficiencies — of the other five encomia and to find in Alcibiades' contribution a glowing tribute by Plato to that most remarkable of human personalities, the philosopher Socrates. This, however, is not the way to arrive at a real understanding of the Symposium. The author clearly intends the reader to respond to this work not as a philosophical treatise on the subject of Eros but as a work of literature which portrays a group of thinking human beings engaged in appraisal of an issue which is of fundamental importance in their lives. His primary purpose in dramatising this intellectual event is thus not to expound the philosopher's conception of Eros or to expose our minds to auto to kalon (‘the beautiful itself’). Rather the true subject of the work is man the intellectual animal, whose logoi (‘speeches’) demonstrate his capacity for analysing, evaluating and idealising his feelings and aspirations. It depicts ‘philosophy brought down from the sky and located in the cities and homes of men’; we are shown how, and how successfully, philosophy can function as a vital constituent of human life, rather than a barren and essentially irrelevant dispute about the mechanics of the universe.
Aeschylus' Oresteia: The Power of Clytemnestra
Authors: Betensky Aya
Published: August 2016

In 1948 Winnington-Ingram made what is still the most eloquent feminist evaluation of Clytemnestra. He concluded that the Oresteia is based on conflict between the sexes; that Clytemnestra hates Agamemnon for being a man and wants his power; and that in his strong portrait of Clytemnestra and purposely inconclusive trial scene of Eumenides, Aeschylus protests the ‘personal tragedy’ of Athenian women. In 1941, Thomson had claimed the opposite: that the trilogy proves Aeschylus' support for the status quo of economically based male superiority. More recently Jones has interpreted the trilogy as the tragedy of the (largely economic) wastage of the oikos, the House of Atreus, by the sexually deviant Clytemnestra, with Aeschylus favoring the status quo. And in a perceptive literary analysis Vickers concluded that Aeschylus ‘evidently shared the Greek attitude to the lesser sex’ and that his ‘exorcism’ of Clytemnestra in Eumenides is a ‘sustained concentration of moral disapproval rarely equalled in literature.
‘Like Dreams That Delude The Sleeping Senses’: Aeneas' Moral Failure and Vergil's Imagery of The Insubstantial
Authors: Northrup Mark D.
Published: August 2016

tum dea nube cava tenuem sine viribus umbram in faciem Aeneae — visu mirabile monstrum — Dardaniis ornat telis, clipeumque iubasque divini adsimulat capitis, dat inania verba, dat sine mente sonum gressusque effingit euntis, morte obita qualis fama est volitare figuras aut quae sopitos deludunt somnia sensus. (A. 10.636-642)

Then out of hollow mist the goddess makes a powerless phantom in the likeness of Aeneas — a sight marvelous to behold! — fits it with Trojan arms, simulates the shield and plumes on its godlike head, and gives it empty words, a voice without a mind, and the gait of a walking man; like phantom forms that flit about, it is said, when death is past, or like dreams that delude the sleeping senses.

Near the mid-point of his aristeia in Iliad 5, Diomedes crushes the hip bone of Aeneas with a great boulder (302 ff.). Before he can administer the coup de grâce, however, Aphrodite intervenes and attempts to protect her son by covering him with the folds of her garment (311 ff.). Not to be thwarted, Diomedes attacks the goddess herself, wounding her on the wrist (334 ff.). She immediately abandons Aeneas and returns, in pain, to Olympus.
Patterning in the Wanderings of Odysseus
Authors: Niles John D.
Published: August 2016

Almost as soon as Odysseus sets sail from the terra firma of Troy in the direction of Ithaka, once the sacred citadel has been burnt to ashes, he seems to enter a Never-Never land of giants, monsters, witches, demigods and demigoddesses, strange beasts, fabulous kingdoms, and the dead. One adventure follows on the heels of another in a sequence as bewildering as any which ever occurred in the murky woods of Arthurian legend. Odysseus travels south, north, east, and west to the limits of the known earth. He spends seven years languishing on the island of Ogygia ‘at the navel of the ocean’ (1.50). At different moments he is threatened with tempest, armed attack, cannibalism, dismemberment, sorcery, and several sorts of seduction. He captures magnificent booty, receives fabulous gifts, enjoys the love of two goddesses, and is offered the hand of a king's daughter in marriage — and by the time that he finally arrives on the shore of Ithaka and sets out to reclaim his kingdom, he is utterly alone, bereft of all companions, his appearance that of a ragged beggar.
Vergil's Pastoral Modes
Authors: Coleman Robert
Published: August 2016

Although there can be little doubt that Theocritus invented the pastoral genre, it is not at all clear that he regarded the pastoral poems as distinct from the rest of his idylls in anything but their rural setting. The narrative-dramatic form kata lepton (‘on a small scale’), the Doric dialect and the hexameter metre, which characterize the eight authentic Pastorals — I, III-VII, X and XI — are also exhibited in the urban mimes II, XIV and XV and in the mythological pieces XVIII and XXVI.

Nor is it easy to see the emergence of a distinct pastoral genre in the work of his Hellenistic successors. For although the pseudo-Theocritean Idylls VIII, IX, XX and XXVII are clearly in the tradition and the fragments of Moschus and Bion, whatever their context may have been, are markedly pastoral in style and content, the boundaries of the genre remain indeterminate. There is for instance Id. XXIII, an isolated precedent for the Renaissance piscatory Eclogues, and the mythological pieces like Moschus' Europa and Aphrodite in search of Eros, Bion's Lament of Aphrodite for Adonis and the anonymous Bucolic fragment (Page Greek Literary Papyri no. 123). Affinities between the Pastoral and erotic poetry of other genres are confirmed by the non-pastoral Id. XXIII. Finally there are two poems that point forward to subsequent developments within the Pastoral itself. In Bion's Myrson and Lycotas the pastoral setting is but a pretty frame for the tale of Achilles on Scyros and the anonymous Lament for Bion shows the first certain instance (since the precise circumstances of Id. VII are obscure) of the use of the pastoral myth for the treatment of a topical subject, the death of an actual poet. The attribution in this poem of a distinctly pastoral poesy to the dead poet is the one firm testimony we have that a specific pastoral genre was recognized in the Hellenistic world.
The Will of the Beast: Sexual Imagery in the Trachiniae
Authors: Wender Dorothea
Published: August 2016

The Women of Trachis — or more properly, the Girls of Trachis — looks backward to a work of Aeschylus, and forward to one of Euripides. All three, the Oresteia, the Trachiniae, the Medea, are tragedies about the sexes.

The Trachiniae reminds us of the Oresteia in the following points: Heracles, like Agamemnon, has been away for a long time, on ‘men's business’. He brings home a concubine, Iole, as Agamemnon brings Cassandra. Deianeira, like Clytemnestra, comments on the silence of the captive girl. Deianeira, like Clytemnestra, causes the death of her husband. Deianeira has a son Hyllus who, like Orestes, is loyal to his father and outraged by his father's murder. There the similarity ends. Although Heracles is not totally unlike Agamemnon, Deianeira could hardly be more different from Clytemnestra: she is feminine and passive, gentle with Iole, whose silence she understands, and she kills her husband accidentally, from love, not hatred. Hyllus, too, is different from Orestes: even when he thinks Deianeira has wilfully murdered his father, the worst treatment he can conceive for her is banishment with his curse. In the Oresteia, gods are ever-present, and appear in person on the stage to effect the happy conclusion of the trilogy.
On Poetry and Language in Homer
Authors: Vivante Paolo
Published: August 2016

It has long been customary to stress the artificial and conventional character of the Homeric language. The coexistence of aeolic and ionic forms, for instance, the metrical lengthenings, the so-called diektasis of contract verbs, the glosses have been studied and used to posit the theory of a language that was never spoken by anybody on earth, composed rather than developed on its own strength. More recently Milman Parry has further enhanced this view. He has stretched the same principle of conventional composition to cover the whole syntax and phraseology of Homer. The traditional language which he postulates is again far removed from the sources of living speech.
The Pathetic Fallacy in Hellenistic Pastoral
Authors: Buller J. L.
Published: August 2016

Thee, shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves And all their echoes mourn.

Milton,Lycidas

Webster's Third International Dictionary defines the ‘pathetic fallacy’ as ‘the ascription of human traits or feelings to inanimate nature.’ While this definition is in substance what John Ruskin meant when he first spoke of the pathetic fallacy more than a century ago, the great critic intended not merely to describe a movement in art, but to denounce that movement:

All violent feelings … produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the ‘Pathetic fallacy.’… The temperament which admits the pathetic fallacy, is … that of a mind or body in some sort too weak to deal fully with what is before them or upon them; borne away, or over-clouded, or over-dazzled by emotion …

Ruskin rejected the pathetic fallacy when artists reduced it to a stock attribute of nature which neither they nor their public believed to reflect the truth. When, however, the pathetic fallacy did convey the artist's true feelings about nature — as groundless in reality as that feeling might have been — the artist was somehow less culpable: the truth of the sentiment mitigated the violation of empirical Truth.
Myth, Cult, and Memory in Pindar's Third and Fourth Isthmian Odes
Authors: Segal Charles
Published: August 2016

Isthmians3 and 4 have not fared well at the hands of critics. Norwood judged them (taken together) as spurious, Wilamowitz as ‘artistically insignificant.’ Most discussions have focussed on the problem of whether they form one ode or two and on the fortunes of the Cleonymid clan to which the victor, Melissus of Thebes, belonged. Of recent interpreters, Köhnken stresses the significance of the myth of Ajax for the unity of the composition, but, like most scholars, ignores the pyres of the children of Heracles at the end, a passage to which I shall pay particular attention later (as if to confirm thede gustibusof Pindaric criticism, these lines were Norwood's final proof of the inauthenticity of the ode). Thummer's commentary is helpful for the relation ofI. 3 toI. 4 and for thetopoiof epinician praise, but he attempts no full critical study. McNeal has offered a good analysis of the architecture ofI. 4, but in his search for formal unity underestimates the quality of Pindar's poetic language and indeed findsI. 4 not ‘particularly noteworthy for any unique images.’

The ‘unity’ of this work, as of most Pindaric odes, lies not merely in a ‘program’ or a rhetorical structure of encomium (which is not to deny their importance) but in the interaction of the formal elements in that encomiastic armature with imagery, myth, and conventional symbols of success and failure in Pindaric diction (e.g. light, flowers, gold). Repetitions of words or themes, recurrent metaphors, and parallel thought-patterns and image-patterns also help shape and clarify the ode's organic coherence as it proceeds from its beginning to its end. All this is to say that Pindaric poetry, despite the special circumstances of epinician festival and encomiastic convention, is ultimately not different from any other poetry and (subject to obvious limitations and qualifications) is amenable to the same analytical techniques. I should not want to throw out the Bundy with the bath water, only remind us that every bathtub obeys those fundamental laws of hydraulics which make plumbing possible.
Red and White in Ovid's Metamorphoses: The Mulberry Tree in the Tale of Pyramus and Thisbe
Authors: Rhorer Catherine Campbell
Published: August 2016

Throughout theMetamorphosesOvid draws special attention to the colors red and white. Red (rubor, rutilus, rubesco, puniceus, purpureus, ‘red’ or ‘purple’) is, of course, the color of blood, of a blush, of ripening fruit, Tyrean dye, and the sky at dawn. White is the color of marble, ivory, lilies, and the sky at noon. If we examine this pair ineroticcontexts, however, we will find that white is associated with innocence and chastity, with the frigid absence of sexual feeling and with emotional and physical death. Red is associated withpudor, that sense of shame that afflicts the innocent whose eyes have just been opened to erotic reality, and with the heat of violence, both the violence of feeling (furor) and the violence of rape.

Perhaps one of the most familiar examples of this color contrast and its erotic associations occurs in the story of Pygmalion and his ivory maiden, in Book X. Ovid is emphatic that the statue is ivory (X.247-48:niveum…ebur, ‘snowy ivory’; 255:ebur, twice) and that the ivory is white. Her ivory flesh, however, is so lifelike that the sculptor fears she will bruise. He dresses her like a real woman, adorns her with countless gifts, and makes her recline on a couch covered with red-dyed spreads (X.267:conlocat hanc stratis concha Sidonide tinctis).
Pseudoepidemic of Endocarditis in Patients Undergoing Open Heart Surgery
Authors: Aber Robert C. , Appelbaum Peter C.
Published: August 2016

Between July 2 and July 16, 1979, three patients were reported to have gram-positive cocci as seen on Gram stain of excised, macerated heart valve tissue. No organisms were isolated in culture; however, our usual procedure for handling such valves is not adequate for isolation of strict anaerobes. The first patient was treated for presumed endocarditis; this resulted in three additional weeks of hospitalization.

Review of the remaining 34 patients who had heart valve replacement surgery between February 1 and July 20, 1979 revealed three additional cases.

Careful analysis revealed that nonviable, gram-positive cocci present in commercially prepared trypticase soy broth were being added to the tissue just prior to mortar and pestle grinding in the microbiology laboratory. The contaminated tubes were noted to have a visible sediment when carefully examined.

The procedure for handling the broth has been revised; a simple screening procedure is used now to identify potentially contaminated broth. No further instances of false positive results on Gram-staining of heart value tissue have occurred since this screening procedure was introduced.
Gentamicin and Tobramycin Resistant Gram-Negative Bacilli in a Community Hospital
Authors: Magnussen C. Richard , Sammartino Maria
Published: August 2016

The incidence and spectrum of resistance to gentamicin and tobramycin among gram-negative bacilli (GNB) isolated in a community hospital over a one-year period were studied. The overall incidence of resistance was 3.7%. Pseudomonads constituted almost half of the resistant organisms. The majority of resistant GNB was isolated from the respiratory and urinary tracts. Acquisition of resistance was correlated with both the total use of gentamicin in the hospital and recent treatment of individual patients with gentamicin plus tobramycin. The overall incidence of resistant isolates (3.7%) and the incidence of resistance for the enterobacteriaceae (1.9%) were lower than rates reported by comparable studies at several university or municipal hospitals.
The Problem of Herpetic Whitlow Among Hospital Personnel
Authors: Greaves Wayne L. , Kaiser Allen B. , Alford Robert H. , Schaffner William
Published: August 2016

Five cases of nosocomially acquired herpetic whitlow are presented; three cases developed following a common exposure. All infections were acquired despite the use of surgical gloves as recommended by existing guidelines on control of nosocomial infection. In two cases the mistaken diagnosis of pyogenic paronychia led to surgical intervention, with excessive morbidity and disability. Among the five cases, morbidity ranged from several days of unemployment to permanent sequelae necessitating a career change. Revised guidelines for infection control should include the use of gloves on both hands whenever patient care involves contact with a debilitated patient with herpes simplex labialis.
Gentamicin Treatment Associated with Later Nosocomial Gentamicin-Resistant Serratia marcescens Infections
Authors: Graham Donald R. , Clegg Herbert W. , Anderson Roger L. , Chelgren Gladys A. , Mostow Steven R. , Dixon Richard E.
Published: August 2016

During a hospital epidemic of infections with gentamicin-resistantSerratia marcescens(GRS), we studied the relation between receiving antibiotics and acquiring GRS. In a five-month period, 22 patients acquired GRS, whereas 18 patients acquired gentamicin-sensitiveSerratia(GSS). When compared with patients with nosocomial GSS infection, patients with nosocomial GRS had been in the hospital (p = 0.04) and the intensive care unit (p = 0.003) longer before infection and more had received gentamicin (p = 0.001) or ampicillin (p = 0.02) before infection. To control for the influence of underlying disease, we matched all 12 ICU patients with GRS infection and 12 patients without GRS infection for underlying illness and duration of intensive care. Use of any antibiotic (p = 0.04), or a combination of gentamicin plus ampicillin or cephalosporin (p = 0.047) was more common among patients with GRS infection. The hospital had not significantly increased the use of aminoglycosides from the previous year. We conclude that for the individual patient antimicrobial therapy, especially with gentamicin or ampicillin, creates a risk for later infection by GRS that is independent of the severity of the underlying illness.
Effect of Bacteriologic Monitoring of Urinary Catheters on Recognition and Treatment of Hospital-Acquired Urinary Tract Infections
Authors: Jacobson Jay A. , Burke John P. , Kasworm Evelyn
Published: August 2016

Catheter-associated urinary tract infections remain the most common hospital-acquired infection. Regular bacteriologie monitoring of urine from catheterized patients has been advocated as a measure for reducing the morbidity associated with this infection. To assess the effectiveness of this measure we reviewed the records of 100 catheterized patients hospitalized before implementation of a monitoring program and 200 such patients admitted after a daily monitoring program was operational. We found that culturing urine from catheterized patients was infrequent prior to monitoring but, when done, patients usually were febrile, cultures usually were positive, and patients were treated. Monitoring identified more cases of bacteriuria, but less than half of the patients so identified were treated. Being febrile was associated with receiving antibiotics. Infection rates increased with duration of catheterization; long periods of catheterization typically occurred on the neurosurgical, orthopedic, and medical services. Daily bacteriologie monitoring of all catheterized patients is relatively inefficient and does not predictably lead to therapeutic intervention in infected patients. The cost:benefit ratio of this measure might be decreased by applying it to selected patients chosen on the basis of risk factors, including hospital service assignment (Infect Control 1981; 2(3):227-232.)
Bacteriologie Studies on Electronic Hospital Thermometers
Authors: Smith Leon , Prince Herbert N. , Johnson Edward
Published: August 2016

Electronic thermometers used in many hospitals require insertion into the mouth of a temperature-sensing probe covered by a pre-packaged probe cover. Handling procedures used by hospital personnel can lead to inadvertent manual contact with the probe cover. We attempted to determine the rate of non-sterility of these probe covers under normal hospital conditions and the extent to which pathogens could be detected on these and other components of the thermometer. Probe covers were removed before entry into the patient's mouth and aseptically inoculated into fluid thioglycollate medium. Subcultures were made to appropriate differential media. Over a 13-week period, 180 covers were cultured on two private hospital services. Forty-three percent were found to be non-sterile; control covers from central supply were only 6% non-sterile. Four percent of the probe covers harbored potential pathogens: coagulase positive Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Enterobacter, and Bacteroides. No attempt was made to correlate these findings with infection. These results indicated a potential infection hazard for high-risk patient groups and a need by hospital personnel to consider this as a possible source of contamination [Infect Control 1981; 2(4):315-6.]
Toxocariasis in an Institution for the Mentally Retarded
Authors: Brook Itzhak , Fish Charles H. , Schantz Peter M. , Cotton David D.
Published: August 2016

A seroepidemiologic investigation was conducted in order to determine the cause of an apparent increase in rates of eosinophilia among 1400 institutionalized children during 1976-1977. The annual serologic survey during this period revealed 283 (20%) individuals with eosinophilia that exceeded 600 cells/cu mm of blood. During a five-month period in 1977, five patients who were hospitalized in adjacent wards developed acute pneumonia with eosinophilia. Because laboratory tests of sputum, bone marrow, and stool failed to identify the, etiologie agent, it was thought that these pneumonia cases might be related to the increased rates of eosinophilia. Analyses of random samples of sera from patients with eosinophilia revealed seroprevalence rates of 12% forAscaris, 20% forToxocara cants, 24% forStrongyloides stercoralis, and 32% with increased antibody toEntamoeba histolytica. Further investigation showed a statistically significant positive association between occurrence of eosinophilia and pica behavior, and eosinophilia and contact with dogs. Although the serologic survey showed patients to have had previous exposure to a variety of parasites, we hypothesize that a principal cause of eosinophilia among institutionalized children may beToxocarainfestation, due to their frequent pica behavior and, in this case, contact with resident animals. We recommend that children in similar facilities have limited contact with pet dogs, and only after frequent and vigorous examination of the animals for infectious parasites.
Serratia marcescens—A Marker for an Infection Control Program
Authors: Marrie T.J. , Noble M.A. , Haldane E.V. , Duncan N.H. , Paterson I. , Carruthers D. , Barry A. , West A. , McCormick S.
Published: August 2016

An infection control program was instituted at The Victoria General Hospital, an 800-bed acute care hospital, in July 1977.Serratia marcescenshad infected or colonized (I/C) 225 to 232 patients yearly for each of the three previous years. Since this organism is usually acquired nosocomially, we decided to use Serratia I/C as a marker for our infection control program. During the years 1977 to 1980, we identified and eliminated several reservoirs ofSerratia(contaminated urine measuring containers, urometers, diabetic urine testing equipment and in-use contamination of 2% Hibitane). Readmission of previously I/C patients proved to be an increasingly important reservoir. During 1980, only 120 patients were I/C, and gentamicin-resistant isolates ofS. marcescenshad dropped from 44% in 1977 to 4.4% in 1980. Use ofSerratiaas a marker enabled us to monitor the efficacy of our infection control program and allowed us to prove to our health care workers the usefulness of many of the measures we introduced.
Perioperative Prophylactic Use of Antibiotics in Surgery: Principles and Practice
Authors: Shapiro Mervyn
Published: August 2016

Prophylatic use of antimicrobics represents about 30% of total hospital use of these agents. Previous studies in animal models have suggested that timing of such prophylaxis is crucial, to the extent of the existence of a “critical period” for effective administration. This phenomenon has further been shown to exist in man, in numerous double-blind, controlled clinical trials in various types of surgical wounds. On these bases, we introduced new prophylactic protocols in a university hospital, specifically directed at reducing infection in high-risk procedures. Surveillance was conducted by infection control nurses, and one antibiotic-day was the comparative unit. Infection rates were markedly diminished under these new protocols. Total usage of antimicrobial drugs also decreased by 38% over previous rates. The rationale for limiting prophylaxis to a conscribed period was clearly demonstrated, although the exact mechanisms responsible for this effect are, as yet, unclear.
Respiratory Illness in Conference Participants Following Exposure to Rug Shampoo
Authors: Robinson Patrick A. , Tauxe Robert V. , Winkler William G. , Levy Martin E.
Published: August 2016

Persons participating in a conference in a major city motel experienced transient mild respiratory illness associated with their presence in the motel conference rooms. The illness was characterized by coughing, sneezing, sore throat, headache, eye irritation, and other symptoms of exposure to a respiratory irritant. Investigation incriminated a chemical shampoo used to clean the conference room rugs approximately one week earlier. Repeated cleaning of the rugs to remove excess cleaning compound eliminated the problem. Excessive application of the shampoo, coupled with a poorly ventilated environment, apparently produced a chemical concentration sufficient to cause clinical illness.
Management of Infectious Waste from Hospitals
Authors: Rutala William A. , Sarubbi Felix A.
Published: August 2016

In October 1980, 80% (120/150) of North Carolina (NC) hospitals responded to a comprehensive solid waste questionnaire intended to identify their solid waste disposal practices. NC hospitals generated an average of 13 lb. of solid waste/patient/day and infectious waste comprised 5% to 11% of the total hospital waste. Most hospitals (>66%) considered blood, isolation, laboratory (including microbiology), pathology, and autopsy waste as infectious, while other sources of solid waste were generally considered non-infectious. The infectious wastes were normally incinerated or steam sterilized before discarding. Nearly all hospitals (95%) used a Class A landfill to dispose of the non-infectious waste. Two-thirds of the NC hospitals are discarding blood, microbiological, pathological, and isolation waste in accordance with the CDC recommendations, while the compliance rates for the JCAH and EPA recommendations for these wastes were 94% and 24%, respectively. If the EPA modified its recommendations to include incineration of microbiological waste, which is practiced by 50 responding NC hospitals, the compliance rate would be 95.5% for these wastes and 61.7% overall.
Role of Aminoglycosides in Face of Introduction of New Beta-Lactam Antibiotics in Treatment of Nosocomial Infection
Authors: McGowan John E. , McClellan David B. , Irwin Paula S.
Published: August 2016

Aminoglycosides often are employed for empiric therapy of nosocomial infection because of their activity against a wide spectrum of gram-negative aerobic bacilli (GNAB). New beta-lactam antimicrobials also are active against many GNAB. As toxicity appears less likely for the beta-lactams than for aminoglycosides, their use might be preferable if susceptibility profiles were equivalent.

We studied susceptibility of 90 GNAB recovered from blood culture during a three-month period. All were susceptible to aminoglycosides; 93% were susceptible to at least one of the following: ampicillin, carbenicillin, ticarcillin, cephalothin, chloramphenicol or trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. All were susceptible to at least one of our newer beta-lactams (cefamandole, cefoxitin, cefotaxime, moxalactam, piperacillin), but the percentage susceptible to any single beta-lactam was lower than that for any of the aminoglycosides tested. All of the isolates were susceptible to combinations of two beta-lactam drugs.

In our hospital, beta-lactams may be reasonable alternatives to aminoglycosides in selected cases where susceptibility has been demonstrated. However, aminoglycosides continue to provide the broadest single-drug coverage for empiric therapy of known or suspected sepsis with GNAB. The utility of combinations of beta-lactam drugs for empiric therapy requires further assessment by clinical trials.