Katharina Wesselmann

Richard Seltzer

Luiz Fernando Ferreira Sá

Diego De Brasi

Briana King

Tiago de Melo Cordeiro

Orestis Karavas

Michael Julian Fischer

Francesca Cichetti

Andelko Mihanovic

Alicia Matz

Sonsoles Costero-Quiroga

Marina Díaz Bourgeal

Emma Ljung

 Thais Rocha Carvalho

Babette Pütz

Avishay Gerczuk

Ronald Blankenborg

 Pietro Vesentin

Sonja Schreiner

thersites is an international open access journal for innovative transdisciplinary classical studies edited by Annemarie Ambühl, Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Christian Rollinger and Christine Walde. thersites expands classical reception studies by publishing original scholarship free of charge and by reflecting on Greco-Roman antiquity as present phenomenon and diachronic culture that is part of today’s transcultural and highly diverse world. Antiquity, in our understanding, does not merely belong to the past, but is always experienced and engaged in the present. thersites contributes to the critical review on methods, theories, approaches and subjects in classical scholarship, which currently seems to be awkwardly divided between traditional perspectives and cultural turns. thersites brings together scholars, writers, essayists, artists and all kinds of agents in the culture industry to get a better understanding of how antiquity constitutes a part of today’s culture and (trans-)forms our present. thersites appears twice yearly and publishes regular issues as well as specially-themed and guest-edited issues focused on individual subjects and questions. Call for papers are released regularly and long in advance on our homepage (https://thersites-journal.de/) and on other pages that feature announcements for classical studies (APA, Mommsen-Gesellschaft etc.).

Fantastic antiquites and where to find them : ancient worlds in (post-)modern novels

thersites 19

In this study of John Milton’s “L’Allegro”, “Il Penseroso”, and “Lycidas”, the perspective of an interpreting sign serves as the basis for analysis of the poems’ allusions to the Orpheus myth. The idea of an interpretant proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce and the semiotic relations theorized by Jorgen Dines Johansen work as a lens that enables the reader to see the extent to which Milton recreated the Orpheus myth and used its recreating powers in his poems. Since the three poems have different and opposing voices, the Orpheus myth is the trigger behind the change of voices, as well as the modeling frame that underlies the transitions from an innocent to an enlightened viewpoint. Furthermore, readers in general and critics of all persuasions will have the chance to appreciate the presence of the Orpheus myth in Milton’s work as the fragmented configuration of consciousness in the process of defining two orders of existence: the human and the divine.

A Peircean Reading

The Orpheus Myth in Milton's “L’Allegro”, “Il Penseroso”, and “Lycidas”

Luiz Fernando Ferreira Sá

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