Image and myth : a history of pictorial narration in Greek art / Luca Giuliani ; translated by Joseph O'Donnell.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-327) and indexes.

The pictorial deluge and the study of visual culture -- Images and texts compared: a diagnosis of contrasts. Revisiting Lessing's Laocoon -- Taking Lessing beyond Lessing -- Images of the world: the eighth century. The shield of Achilles: description and narration -- Fighting lions -- Seafarer's farewell -- Siamese twins -- Aristocratic life and aristocratic death -- Warriors to sea -- The advent of pictorial narratives in the seventh century. The horse on wheels -- Polyphemos, the defenseless giant -- Epic or folktale? -- Playing with writing in the eighth, seventh, and sixth enturies. Painters learn to write -- Name inscriptions confirming narrative content -- Name inscriptions generating narrative content -- Everyman's armor: Achilles' armor -- Kleitias and the Muses -- Directing the gaze in the sixth and fifth centuries. Polyphemos again: the synchronization of narrative images -- Hektor's corpse: the surprise at dinner -- The hero and the sorceress: moments of suspense -- The murder of Priam: unparalleled barbarity -- The fall of Troy: combining multiple scenes -- Victor and vanquished: the limits of narration and the possibilities of description -- Images in the pull of text: from the fifth to the fourth century. Achilles' wrath and Achilles' lyre -- From oraliture to literature: the emergence of a culture of reading -- Hastening Furies: sleeping Furies -- Pictures for readers: the birth of the illustration in the second century. Splendor and misery of an Odyssey picture cycle -- The triumph of texts and the fidelity of images -- Looking back: pitfalls and nodes.