VOL. 56, BOOK 1, PART B, 2018, pp. 239 – 249 Full text (Pl)
Author: Aleksander Wojciech Mikołajczak
Affiliation: Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań
Abstract
The article focuses on the methodological problems of the research on the perception of ancient heritage of the European civilization. The profound changes caused by the industrial revolution in the world have transformed both the ways of communicating the Greco-Roman tradition and its culture-forming functions. This situation prompts us to look for new ways of analyzing the phenomenon of perception of antiquity, as a dynamic process of processing classic literary themes, as well as Greek and Roman artifacts. This means that it is necessary to replace traditional research methods with new ways of describing this phenomenon. The article presents one of the possible approaches using the concept of “quadruple object” by Graham Harman and the theory of actor-network (ANT) by Bruno Latour. An example of their applications in the research on the acquisition of antiquity is the analysis of the Trojan horse motif. Showing the mechanisms of its transformation from the literary topos into an artifact, allows to draw attention to the equal role in this process of human actions and the property of the object being transformed.
Key words: perception, antique heritage, things, speculative realism, actor-network theory (ANT)
