THE DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS ANNOUNCES
THE 1ST ANNUAL HELLENIC LECTURE

 Sunday 23 September 2012 @ 3:00 pm in 237 University College

John Dillon (Trinity College, Dublin)

“Alexandria Quartet: Callimachus, Philo, Origen, Cavafy”

The lecture seeks to explore aspects of the ‘Alexandrian’ sensibility — a concern for hidden, allegorical meanings, nostalgia for ancient wisdom, and choice of bizarre and recherché subject matter — through an examination of the work of four representative authors from that city, the Hellenistic poet Callimachus, the Jewish Platonist philosopher Philo, the Christian — or ‘Neo-christian’ — theologian and philosopher Origen, and lastly, the modern poet Constantine Cavafy, a figure who embraces all the previous ones and more. It is suggested that there are tendencies in modern literary and artistic sensibility that are reminiscent of Alexandrianism, but that on the whole they should be resisted.