The Scent of the Text: The Representation of Smells in Ancient Greek Literature

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Mario Baumann
• Subject Area: Greek and Latin Philology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 530070533

The project aims to investigate how and with what effect on recipients odours are portrayed in ancient Greek literature. It addresses a gap in research in that it is the first comprehensive investigation of this subject across authors and genres on a consistently literary-studies basis. From the period ranging from Homer to Nonnos, the project selects predominantly literary texts in which representations of smell occur in large numbers or particularly extensively. Specifically, the study corpus defined in this way includes selected passages from the following authors: Homer, Aesop, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Xenophon, Theocritus, Apollonius of Rhodes, Antigonus of Carystus, Nicander of Colophon, Diodorus of Sicily, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Lucian, Achilleus Tatius, Longus, Athenaeus of Naucratis and Nonnus. In order to analyse this text corpus, the project pursues three guiding questions, which at the same time represent the three essential working steps of the project: How do the texts evoke smells? How are the properties of the sense of smell used by the texts? How do representations of smell generate larger plots or narratives?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Leon Schmieder