SEMANOFF

Background: Aratus (ca. 315-240 BCE) of Soli
in Cilicia (present-day southern Turkey) is best known for his poem about
astronomy called Phaenomena, which was a mega hit in its time.
In the ancient world this poem was second only to the Iliad and
Odyssey in popularity, and was even translated into Arabic (as few
Greek poems were). The Phaenomena deals with the constellations,
circles of the celestial sphere, and weather signs. It describes days of
the lunar month, and makes weather predictions from animal behavior.

Summary : Professor Semanoff’s talk will include
a brief summary of early Greek astronomy, a brief analysis of literary astronomical
references before Aratus, and will ask whether it is possible to learn astronomy
from Aratus’ poetry, a question that attempts to examine the nature of didactic
poetry more generally. His thesis is that Aratus’ description of the positions
of the constellations treats the night-sky as an art object. Although no
material remains survive proving the existence of celestial globes or other
material artifacts used to model the heavens, and literary anecdotes concerning
the use of models are late and fraught with problems, the text of the poem
elicits in the reader’s mind a model, allowing the reader to imagine the
night sky all at once (rather than throughout the night, over the course
of the year). The poet uses language to blur the distinction between the
appearance of constellations comprised of fixed stars and the figures that
the constellations represent that are more akin to artistic depictions.
Aratus’ Phaenomena creates an ecphrasis (artistic digression) that
uses techniques similar to those used in the Homeric ecphrasis detailing
the shield of Achilles in the Iliad.