Publisher's Synopsis
The aim of this book is to make accessible to intermediate students of Ancient Greek three examples of Lucian's Prolaliai, or "Introductory Lectures" (A Literary Prometheus, Dionysus and Heracles). The running vocabulary and grammatical commentary are meant to provide everything necessary to read each page, so that readers can progress through the texts, improving their knowledge of Greek while enjoying one of the most entertaining authors of antiquity. In each of these texts, Lucian reflects on aspects of his performance, on the hybrid nature of his new genre, the comic dialogue, and his own cultural hybridity, as an outsider engaged with the canon of traditional Greek culture he has mastered. As such these readings are typical of their author as well as the brilliant period of Greek literature known as the Second Sophistic.
