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X-WR-CALNAME:John Tennant (Stanford University) “Speaking Lyrically\, Spe
 aking Proverbially”
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Pacific Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260813T051906Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_50721432791769
DTSTART:20251010T190000Z
DTEND:20251010T200000Z
DESCRIPTION:Talk Description: \n\nPlato’s quotation of excerpts from lyri
 c poetry in the dialogues highlights the status of those excerpts as detac
 hable statements\, removed from their original\, textual context. This inv
 ites the question\, what makes a statement detachable? What quality allows
  for a text’s quotability as a “stand-alone\,” a “detachable?” I
  argue in this paper that an essential element of detachability consists i
 n a statement’s capacity to function proverbially – as a stand-alone a
 phorism\, maxim\, proverb. Plato’s quotations from various lyric poets 
 – among them Simonides\, Theognis\, Solon\, Pindar\, and Phocylides – 
 illustrate how lyric poetry seems especially possessed of this capacity to
  generate detachable\, proverbial statements. Readings from Plato’s quot
 ation of lyric poets in Protagoras\, Meno\, and Republic reveal that withi
 n the context of the dialogic exchange\, to speak lyrically is to speak pr
 overbially – that is\, to marshal lyric quotation as stand-alone proverb
  in the dialectic. In addition\, lyric “proverbs” often seem to contra
 dict one another\, even when composed by the same poet and within the very
  same poem (e.g.\, Simonides’ ode to Scopas in Protagoras\, verses from 
 Theognis in Meno). Aside from noting the connection with the sophistic edu
 cational practice of the antilogiae – itself consonant with the antilogi
 cal arrangement of ancient gnomic anthologies with their assorted proverbs
  gathered from different texts – I argue that the positioning of contrad
 ictory proverbs in the lyric poetry of Simonides and Theognis (“contradi
 ctory” at least\, in Plato’s act of citation) enjoys a correspondence 
 with modern counterparts\, such as Robert Frost’s dueling proverbs in 
 “Mending Wall.” Moreover\, lyric detachables in both Plato and Frost h
 ighlight the Janus-faced nature of proverbial expression\, revealing that 
 contrary to popular belief\, proverbs are hardly univocal but rife with pa
 radox and ambiguity\, qualities essential to lyric poetry.\n\nBiography:\n
 \nJohn Tennant is a Lecturer in Ancient Greek and Latin and the Director o
 f Undergraduate Studies at Stanford University’s Classics Department. Hi
 s research concerns the transmission of cultural wisdom in Greek prose and
  poetry and how this transmission was called into question in the late fif
 th century BCE. John explores how proverbs\, aphorisms\, and other rhetori
 cal commonplaces become particularly important at times when discourse bre
 aks down and language itself becomes an object of mistrust. His current bo
 ok project\, Plato’s Proverbs: The Reformation of Discourse in Plato’s
  Republic\, offers a new way of reading Plato\, based upon the previously 
 unexplored role that proverbs and quotation play in creating a more just s
 tate. Related to John’s interest in the breakdown of discourse is a focu
 s on instances of “failure\,” particularly with respect to performance
  in ancient literature\, such as Pindar’s numerous false starts and self
 -corrections. John’s second book project will explore more broadly the d
 ynamic of failure in ancient literary performance. John received his PhD i
 n Classics from the University of California\, Los Angeles (2019) and his 
 MA in Classics from Stanford University (2013). Prior to becoming a classi
 cist\, John was a union-side labor lawyer\, having received his J.D. from 
 Harvard Law School (1989).\n\nThis talk will not be available on zoom and 
 will not be recorded.
GEO:37.427985;-122.170551
LOCATION:Building 110\, 112
SUMMARY:John Tennant (Stanford University) “Speaking Lyrically\, Speaking
  Proverbially”
URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.stanford.edu/event/john-tennant-stanford-unive
 rsity-speaking-lyrically-speaking-proverbially
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