NONNUS (Egyptian for " saint ")

This article appears in Volume V19, Page 737 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NEW-NUM

NONNUS (Egyptian for " saint ") , Greek epic poet, a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebaid, probably lived at the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 5th century A.D. His principal

work

WORK

is the Dionysiaca, an epic in

forty

FORTY

-eight books, the main subject of which is the expedition of Dionysus to India and his return. The earlier portions treat of the rape of Europa, the battle of the giants, the mythical history of Thebes, and it is not until the eighth book that the

birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

of the god is described. Other poets had already treated the subject, and since the time of Alexander it had gained popularity from the favourite comparison of the king with the god and of his enemies with the giants. In its vast and formless luxuriance, its beautiful but artificial versification, its delineation of action and passion to the entire neglect of character, the poem resembles the epics of India. Like his countryman Claudian, Nonnus is a writer of copious learning and still more copious fancy, whose faults are those of the age in which he lived. His

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

merit consists in the systematic perfection to which he brought the Homeric hexameter. But the very correctness of the versification renders it monotonous. His influence on the vocabulary of his successors was likewise very considerable.
We also possess under his name a paraphrase (gera/io?i7) of the Gospel of St John, which is chiefly interesting as apparently indicating that Nonnus in his later years was a convert to Christianity. The style is not inferior to that of his epic, but, employed in embellishing the simple narrative of the evangelist, it produces an impression of extreme bombast and want of

taste

TASTE (from Lat. taxare, to touch sharply; tangere, to touch)

. According to an epigram in the Palatine

Anthology

ANTHOLOGY

(ix. r98), Nonnus was also the author of a Battle of the Giants, and four lines of the Bassarica (also on the subject of Dionysus) have been preserved in Stephanus of Byzantium.
Editio princeps (1569) ; H. KSchly (" Teubner "

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

, with

critical

CRITICAL (in alphabetical order of authors)

introduction and full index of names, 1858); the most generally useful edition is that by the comte de Marcellus (1856), with notes and prolegomena, and a French

prose

PROSE

translation. On the metre, see J. G. Hermann, Orphica (1805), p. 69o; A. Ludwich, Beitrage zur Kritik des Nonnus (1873),

critical

CRITICAL (in alphabetical order of authors)

, grammatical and metrical; C. Lehrs, Quaestiones epicae (1837), pp. 255-302, chiefly on metrical questions; on the sources, R. KShler, Ober die Dionysiaka des Nonnus (1853), a short and connected

analysis

ANALYSIS (Gr. avci and Meta, to break up into parts)

of the poem, with a comparison of the earlier and later myths; see also I. Negrisoli, Studio critico . . . Nonnus Panopolita, with short bibliography (1903). The paraphrase on St John (editio princeps, c. 1505) is edited by F. Passow (1834) and A. Scheindler (1881), with complete index.

End of Article: NONNUS (Egyptian for " saint ")

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/NEW_NUM/NONNUS_Egyptian_for_saint_.html">
NONNUS (Egyptian for " saint ")
</a>

(Previous)
NONJURORS

(Next)
NONPAREIL

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email