General

Extract

One of the more salient features of Greek and Roman literature is its archival impulse expressed in the tendency to incorporate lists, enumerations, and catalogues. From Homer's manifold catalogues, via classical historiographers, to Roman poets and beyond, catalogues and lists seem ubiquitous in ancient literature, and ancient authors catalogued all sorts of items: from ships, to war dead, to dog names, to mention but a few. But not only so in literature: in documentary sources with their lists of magistrates, victors, tributes, taxes, and more, we witness the same appetite for creation of order and taxonomy. This is the phenomenon that the edited volume Lists and Catalogues in Ancient Literature and Beyond tackles in sixteen chapters, prefaced by a substantial introduction penned by the editors. As they observe, lists are indeed fashionable in literary studies these days, and the volume aims to provide a theoretically informed overview of the variety of lists and catalogues in ancient literature. The first of the four sections consists of two wide-ranging and inspired papers that provide a theoretical background: Mainberger's piece looks for a site of meaning in a list by analysing, no less, the table of contents of the very volume in which the article is printed, while von Contzen tackles ontological problems and establishes a set of criteria for the assessment and description of a list, before turning to the pragmatics and highlighting the effects that lists may have in the moment of reception: ‘the list is a narrative fascinosum, a literary form that startles and entertains; that attracts and repels at the same time’ (51).