The Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature of the Academy of Athens is pleased to announce the lecture by Yiqun Zhou (Stanford) on ‘Nature, Emotion and Metamorphosis in Classical Chinese and Greco-Roman Myth and Poetry’. The lecture will take place online on Thursday 19 June 2025, 11.00 New York / 16.00 London / 18.00 Athens / 23.00 Beijing (Please note the change from the usual time).

Abstract

 This talk compares the roles of emotion in classical Chinese and Greco-Roman accounts about human transformation into animals, birds, plants and stones. Three sets of contrasts are observable in both textual traditions: philosophical versus mythological/literary views of the link between human metamorphosis and the natural world, positive versus negative emotions involved in the transformations, and male versus female in the gender of the protagonists who undergo both psychological and physical alteration. Treating Tao Yuanming’s Reading the Classic of Mountains and Seas and Ovid’s Metamorphoses as culminating works in their respective traditions, this inquiry examines whether/how the two poets attempt to reconcile the mythological/literary and philosophical perspectives on metamorphosis, to endow negative emotions with creative and exemplary power, and to associate that power with both male and female protagonists. 

 To receive the ZOOM link email mkonaris@academyofathens.gr

For the series programme see here: https://www.academyofathens.gr/en/ereyna/kentra/ereyna-latinikis/kyklos-omilion-2025