Bodies of Gods: Corporeality and Divinity in the Archaic Greek Epic

FAIN: FT-53346-05

Alex Claire Purves
UCLA; Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA 90024-4201)

My project is to complete the first section of a book-length study on the physical composition of immortal bodies in early Greek epic (Homer, Hesiod, and the Homeric Hymns). BODIES OF GODS investigates the way that the divine figure acts in both the mortal and immortal world. It considers how the gods inhabit their bodies, how they regenerate them, and how the different parts of their anatomy work. Section 1 of the book, to be completed during the 2 month period of the fellowship, examines how the immortal body engages with the physics of human space and time through the three categories of size, weight, and speed.