Death of a Gricean Grecian

------ By JLS
----------- for the GC
-------------------- WELL, NOT MUCH OF A GRICEAN, or GRECIAN, but Sir K. Dover, who I have discussed at length in CLASSICS-L past. I'm retriving some of his stuff as discussed by this Gricean. More info from

http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?S1=classics-l

09/04/23 Classics and Wedekind's "Spring Awakening"
09/04/07 Mancinelli, Ero e Leandro
09/03/30 Passio
09/03/26 The Countenance of Desire
09/02/19 The Same ... Only Different (Was: Etrurian Eschatology)
09/02/10 epi hebe
09/01/22 The Strange Case of Benjamin Jowett
09/01/16 Non Un'Altra!
09/01/13 Ancient Greek bars and brothels
08/10/09 Hellenism in Six Easy Lessons
08/09/18 Occam's Razor (Is: Plato's Beard
08/09/08 Classical Sexual Vocabulary: A to Z
08/09/03 idem
08/08/29 Reflections on Winkelmann
08/06/18 Lads and Demons
08/06/05 The Music of the Spheres
08/05/29 Supralunary Triangles in Mythological Opera: A Survey
08/05/17 The Graeco-Roman (Italian) Libretto Formula
08/05/08 The Browning Version
08/04/30 Residents of Lesbos file suit
08/04/24 The Dorian Kanon
08/04/23 same
08/03/14 Spitzeriad: A Trilogy
08/02/25 Glyptotheke: The Pipes of Pan
08/02/23 Graeco-Roman Masculinities
08/02/19 Epipsychidion
08/02/18 Glyptotheca: Andrias kai Hippos [By the Side]
08/02/16 kalos
08/02/16 idem
08/02/16 Astragaloi
08/02/15 Aristotle on aner
08/02/15 Plato on aner‚
08/02/08 Latin slang for an Objectionable person
08/02/05 Greek Cavalry (Was: "Hipika")
08/02/04 Glyptotheca: Hylas
08/02/04 Dubris
08/02/03 Human Deification: Its Eschatology in Aristophanes
08/02/03 Athena Oxoniensis
08/02/03 Anatomical and Physiological Humour in Aristophanes
08/02/02 Dysphemism in Aristophanes
08/02/02 Akersekomes
08/02/02 idem
08/01/30 A Greek Beauregard
08/01/30 idem.

--- Excerpts:


Item #47833 (23 Apr 2009 10:05)

- Re: Classics and Wedekind's "Spring Awakening". 'erastes', since the terms are homophobic by nature. Eros and Anteros seem more appropriate terms (see Dover,
Homosexuality). For Dover, 'anteros' is _smaller_ (physically) than eros because 'the love you get is never as big


---

Item #47392 (26 Mar 2009 08:58) -
The Countenance of Desire
'dysphemism'. Of course, Masoch would love to be insulted, but we know Greek
ephebes didn't: Dover reports on the youth who was mocked by his erastes,

"You haven't got pregnant yet?"

and reacted by killing him on the spot. He just found teh implicature too offensive.

----


Item #46664 (10 Feb 2009 21:23) - epi hebe
Lear's point is 'quiet' in
criticising previous studies of the relevant iconography (Dover)


Item #46184 (16 Jan 2009 08:30) - Non Un'Altra!
Dover, a Brit, but continental in parts


Brothels
"Dover spends a lot of time -- too much, to my taste -- on this
legal case as to whether this Greek had been a prostitute or not."

Item #44493 (9 Oct 2008 08:06)
Hellenism in Six Easy Lessons

"We have discussed this previously
in this forum, and I thank the list-member
that reminded me that Dover was indeed
'circumcised' (or a 'roundhead' in
school parlance -- not meant to offend -- just slang)."


Item #44137 (18 Sep 2008 19:32)
Occam's Razor (Is: Plato's Beard

"Dover refuses even to _admit_ Plato's
ramblings as "evidence" for
_anything_. He thought, rightly, that
the man indulged in a few 'category mistakes'.
For example:

"Dover (and I) refuse to apply, 'beautiful' to 'soul'."

"Only 'shapes' are 'beautiful'". -- vide Hollingshurt, The Line of Beauty.

"It's not clear if in the myth the attraction of these


Item #44017 (8 Sep 2008 15:52)
Classical Sexual Vocabulary: A to Z

"Well, Dover finds it interesting that the Greeks were unable to distinguish
between +/- ADULT and +/-MALE. So, for Dover, a -ADULT and a -MALE would be thought of as equivalent, which is of course pretty intolerant for Sappho!

Item #43885 (3 Sep 2008 10:37)
Classical Sexual Vocabulary: A to Z

"Dover and Williams have discussed the topic of masculinities in Greek and
Roman 'cultures' respectively, but none seems to have had a specially _lexical_ leaning. Dover suggests that Greeks were deep-down heterosexual (like himself?) so if they felt attracted towards the _same_ sex, that was because they enjoyed the role of top and also because in their binary system. -ADULT/+MALE was seen as -ADULT/-MALE (a girl is a girl is a girl).



Item #42527 (18 Jun 2008 07:59)
Lads and Demons
Lear's point is 'quiet', the amazon review goes, in criticising previous
studies of the relevant iconography (Dover) who have over-interpreted the 'hunt'
trope -- but then what's the good of an icon if you cannot _mis-interpret_?


Item #42304 (5 Jun 2008 23:02)
The Music of the Spheres

Mutatis mutandis, mortals lack the proper _ears_ to listen to the music of the
spheres. But then:

As Dover says in his book on sexuality, isn't Plato (in his
'regress') committing yet another 'category mistake'?

"beautiful", "pleasing spectrum of _acoustics_ and auditory phenomena, which are notably _physical_. And, Dover adds,

it is a categorial mistake to use adjectives belonging to one stratum of a language to another (He rejects the idea of 'beautiful soul' for example, and so do I, unless I'm waxing metaphorical).

Item #42162 (29 May 2008 11:08)
Supralunary Triangles in Mythological Opera: A Survey

that the opera goer knows featured large in history later. * ERCOLE.
Vivaldi. Spoletto DVD with full-frontal of circumcised title role (cf. Dover
for historical evidence to the contrary).



Item #41838 (30 Apr 2008 22:30) - Re: Residents of Lesbos file suit
"I found Dover's discussion
of 'laconise' pretty ingenuous"


Item #41777 (24 Apr 2008 19:31)
The Dorian Kanon

"Dover does make a point at the end of his commentary between 'kallos' and
size, [where the Hellena a size-queen, or what?] and, I would add, 'sexual pleasure'. In the end, it all connects nicely. Dover considers that the Attic kanon, itself originally Dorian, was "passive-oriented". "x" was considered 'kallos' if x provided with sexual "Art can only _imitate_ Nature. In "Predilections and Fantasies", we read from Dover:

"In vase painting, the characteristic [...] is short ...
The small [...] is promised by Orthos, Nub. 1009 as
one of the desirable results of a "a mind of its own"
Dover.


Item #41761 (23 Apr 2008 11:24)
The Dorian Kanon

Well, Art can only _imitate_ Nature. Dover dedicates a whole section to the
discussion and also Lucie-Smith. The section in Dover, third book, is
"Predilections and Fantasies".

"In vase painting, the characteristic ... is short."
(Antaios R16 and Tityos R675) are spared the indignity of caricature."

"Statistics based in Europe indicate an average ... length of 9.51 cm."

Dover notes an artistic license:

"the erect ... is of normal size. Now if it was

"There is no reason a prioi to treat one of the two sizes as realistic."

Dover's corollary:

"If a big ... goes with an ugly face, and a small ... with a 'kalos' face, then it is the small ... that was admired."

"Sculpture

Item #41225 (14 Mar 2008 23:26)
Spitzeriad: A Trilogy

DiPietro ("You-Man"), aka 'Kristen' of the Emperors Club, I have not yet
found much about Mrs. Spitter.

Dover notes in his commentary on Bakkhai that
'spit' is indeed metonymyc for 'ejacule' and Spartan 'inspire'.

The fact that it

#40927 (25 Feb 2008) Glyptotheke: The Pipes of Pan

Pat Lawrence goes on to say that 'gender issues' were tiresome by the time
Dover's book appeared. I agree, although I wasn't there!
The book struck me as carrying a political agenda. At the same time I had
Sargent's book on Greek myth which reviews Dover rather critically. In any
case, I was doing Spartan studies then and Dover's book struck me as rather good.

#40869 (23 Feb 2008) Graeco-Roman Masculinities

After all, Dover did publish his fourth book on Greek masculinities, and now=
there is a book by a former student at Yale on _Roman_ masculinities.
The idea would be that, as Dover shown, the Greeks were a bit on the _loose_=
side. I remember an interview to Colin Farrell, who had _just_ done "Alexander"
The main problem with masculinities, as Sargent notes in his review of Dover=
is the binary system. The "male" was conceptualised at various categories.
Dover has explained how 'pleasure', 'beauty' and other issues 'pleasures of =
the body', 'sensual pleasures', 'love', 'desire', interact with this 'animal' side.

Another problem is the narrow scope of Dover's book. He says he won't discuss anything 'non Attic'. And perhaps he was right, for surely the Lakonians would not have disclosed much that he would have cared to listen to.

#40761 (19 Feb 2008) Epipsychidion

Dover notes that it may be a rite a passage thing, the way boys were raped in Greece. Especially in Crete.

#40726 (18 Feb 2008)
Glyptotheca: Andrias kai Hippos [By the Side]

On the other hand, I recall Dover's fourth book. He says, cocks and tripds were okay as gifts for rent-boys: it's not all the money, you know.

#40621 (16 Feb 2008) kalos

Perhaps we should give credit to Plato that it is 'form' that is 'beautiful' -- and _form_ *is* abstract. Dover could have done with some philosophical course in aesthetics when he wrote, rather confusingly, about that he thinks the Greeks meant when they wrote a graffito to the effect that some little drawing there was 'kallos', or as an inscrption to a statue.

#40617 (16 Feb 2008) idem

I don't know where Plato learnt his Greek from. Dover says Plato's Greek is so idiosyncratic that nobody should follow it.(Dover says this in a little footnote to his third book).

Item #40607 (16 Feb 2008) Astragaloi

Dover notes that Beauty cannot but apply to a sunolon of morphe and hyle.
I was reading Dover yesterday, and he proposes that Plato was possibly ill in various
respects. He thought that SEEING the idea of BEAUTY (Wisdom) was a form of LOVING. Dover says that it's not unlike orgasm, only that Plato uses such metaphorical and
allegorical terms that it makes you fear it! Dover says one problem with Plato is that he was aristocratic, elitist, and had possibly too much free time on his hands.

#40605 (15 Feb 2008) Aristotle on âner

As I mentioned, Dover is very derogatory towards Plato's Symposium and hardly considers the myth that educated. Anyway, Aristotle was possibly _more_ confused. Dover does not discuss him systematically but focuses on the. Aristotle seems to associate seed (Gk. 'sperma') with what Dover refers to as 'orgasmos'. This Aristotle rightly places in the animals. Dover doubts as to what conception of âner had. The language does not help.

"Arren" is sometimes translated as 'rough', and given Aristotle's view =

#40604 (15 Feb 2008) Plato on âner

It's amazing how things got so much complicated by the time of _Symposium_. Usually, Dover is hardly helpful there, being so derogatory towards Plato, but he says some interesting things on Aristotle on âner‚ that I'll=

#40398 (8 Feb 2008) Re: Latin slang for an Objectionable person
For the Hellenikoi Meroi Somatikoi, and a greek derriere.

We may quote from Dover:

"euruproktos", 'having a wide arse'
is a common abusive term in comedy, with literal meaning kept in view.

"You katapugon, are wide-arsed" (Arist=

#40313 (5 Feb 2008) Greek Cavalry "Hipika"

"Apparently, Dover, who is an atheist, has this 'divine call' ('woof woof') that transmuted? his scale of values. He realised he was not Greek!
Anyway, Dover quotes from Herodotus, "The Egyptians circumcise themselves [while in Dover's case it was really a _reciprocal_ or _reflexive_]."

"And," Herodotus adds,

"they circumcise their genitals [as opposed to their noses? JLS] for the sake of cleanliness" [Sure, I might just as well circumcise my ears. Choosing, alas, to be clean, rather than _pretty_, by Greek kanons. Plus, if a greek saw someone as circumcised that was enough for him to call him a 'barbarus'.

Dover notes the word there is 'peritemnein', to cutt from off, 'used also for cutting off the ears", and not just the prepuce.

When I was reading the passage that Cox reported from Dover's marginal comment (and the reference to the 19th century) I thought,

"how old is this Dover man?".

I see he was born in 1920 [He died in 2010].I understand the practice in England since has been _not_ to circumcise, and perhaps the learning of the Classics had something to do about it, or rather with the not having to do something not do it, or something.

#40299 (4 Feb 2008 ) Dubris

"Born in London, K. J. Dover was educated at school. He died in 2010."

#40282 (3 Feb 2008) Human Deification: Its Eschatology in Aristophanes

Dover comments: "'ambrosia being the food of the gods, the faeces of the immortal [eschatological, once human, now deificated] boy will naturally be composed of it, and we are brutally reminded of what Zeus does to Ganymede" (p. 145). Call him for some wine pour? Surely Dover is reading between the lines. Cox's comments have motivated to delve Dover deeply. Dover cites from Aristophanes: Yet Dover says that in Aves 504-7 there is a "pun on the two senses of _psolos_ in a joke about the [famously roundhead] Phoenicians."

#40279 (3 Feb 2008) Athena Oxoniensis

Cox quotes from Dover's Diary: I didn't know that Dover was not uncut.

#40262 (3 Feb 2008) Anatomical and Physiological Humour in Aristophanes

"Dover notes that the problem is with 'voice' (phone). For civilised languages, there are _two_, pathicus (or passive voice) and active voice. Dover analyses a little dialogue in Aristophanes. So at least two readings are possible. I'm not cut (Dover says his credo too when avoiding misexegesis) yet I don't find uncut humour that funny. On the other hand, a cut fries 'hard-ons' [circumcised] penises with 'glanses exposed' [Dover], or erect [uncircumcised] penises or not even poking fun on them. Just conversing about them. Or it can, alla Dover, be interpreted as an ethnological misobservation by Aristophanes oned
by McMahon would testify that, as Dover notes, if the meaning
there were none --- at least not in Thracia, to judge by vase painting, Dover again notes. But cfr. Dover on 'two' usages of 'psolos' in Birds. Consider Dover on 'homosexual sex'. A gesture would indicate whether a passage in active, middle or passive voice would be considered _obscene_ or not.

#40234 (2 Feb 2008) Dysphemism in Aristophanes

Consider the penis in Aristophanes: a shelter or a weapon? When it's a weapon, it's a dysphemism. I find most of Aristophanes's dysphemisms rude, and I agree with Dover when in his fascimile page to his book on the 'comedian' he notes that his target were 'rustics' with possible to large a penis to cover under their tunics. Reading Dover's _second_ book, I see Dover indeed relishes in the description by Aristophanes of a circumcised male (which I'm not, and neither is professor Julie Siegel -- but then she is a lady).

#40232 (2 Feb 2008) Akersekomes

I would never have thought that 'hair' was such a significant _seme_ for the Greeks. I think it's in Dover (in his Duckworth book, not his previous Aristophanes book which has a nice frontispiece of a 'Greek farmer' -- as the equivalent of the sort of rustics who would find his humour funny (I don't). And thanks for the ref. to the Aristophanes quote, N. L.) that mentions that. The apparatus criticus was pretty erotic. Dover argues that a shaved head and most notably, no capilary distractions in the face (such as beards, moustaches and whiskers, but I keep my sides long) would won your battle.

#40116 (30 Jan 2008) A Greek Beauregard

"He has a good shape. But he smells." (Therefore, +> he is not beautiful as if he WOULD be if he had a shower. I.e. the moral in Plato's Symposium is: "Good shape is not enough." That he is noisy in bed is a further minus. Dover says: form, color, and sound -- that is the trio of the ideal of Greek beauty.

#40109 (30 Jan 2008) idem

K. J. Dover has referred to complex issues in what I regard, now, has been the main achievement of the Greeks: not so much the adoration, idolatry, etc. of rationality, but the priority of _form_ and the idea of _form_ as being the supervened base for 'beauty'. In any case Grice was very handsome so what gives?




Dover (in his controversial book published with Duckworth -- hardly accessible to students in Buenos Aires -- so kryptik the thing) notes in a footnote I adore:



K. J. Dover has referred to complex issues in what I regard, now, has been the main achievement of the Greeks: not so much the adoration, idolatry, etc. of rationality, but the priority of _form_ and the idea of _form_ as being the supervened base for 'beauty'.




Dover (in his controversial book published with Duckworth -- hardly accessible to students in Buenos Aires -- so kryptik the thing) notes in a footnote I adore: