'Dionysus and the Structure of Plutarch's Table Talk'
- Submitting institution
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Coventry University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 23130191
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- A Versatile Gentleman: Consistency in Plutarch's Writing
- Publisher
- Brill
- ISBN
- 9789462700765
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2016
- URL
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-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- 29 - Classics
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This is a chapter in a co-edited volume with an international list of contributors (from Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the UK, and the USA). The chapter aims to trace aspects of a thematic structure in Plutarch’s Table Talk, a miscellany of anecdotes from a series of (fictional?) dinner-parties, centring on the figure of Dionysus. In effect this is an attempt to discern a design in a work which is often read as being undesigned. The structure of the work has not been discussed in this way before: while an underlying coherence has been detected, the role of Dionysus in providing this has not been discussed previously. The methodological approach is to undertake a close reading of the text. The volume was reviewed in Classical Review 68 (2018), 51-4 by Chrysanthos Chrysanthou, who said of this paper: ‘[Mossman’s] emphasis rests on the relationship between the presence of the god Dionysus in the Table Talk and the underlying arrangement of the work. Mossman neatly proves that Dionysus performs a unifying function for many of the most prevalent themes of the work and (most importantly) for the dramatic texture of the dialogue.’
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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