The Gildersleeve Prize Winner for 2010

THE GILDERSLEEVE PRIZE
FOR THE BEST ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY
IN 2010 HAS BEEN PRESENTED TO

MICHAEL SQUIRE
CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

for his contribution to scholarship in "Making Myron's Cow Moo? Ecphrastic Epigram and the Poetics of Simulation," in AJP 131.4: 589-634.

Although there were other articles that impressed the judges for various reasons, they ultimately decided unanimously to award the Gildersleeve Prize for 2010 to Michael Squire for "Making Myron's Cow Moo? Ecphrastic Epigram and the Poetics of Simulation." Building on the serious and sophisticated attention that has been devoted to epigram in recent years, the author demonstrates how much more can be elicited from a group of epigrams purporting to react to the sculptor Myron's famous bronze statue of a cow, a series that formerly drew the scorn of classicist commentators as well as of intellectuals like Gibbons, Goethe, and Winckelmann. Drawing skilfully on relevant literary, philosophical, and aesthetic theories, this article shows how the cow epigrams play with ideas of replication and illusion, and how they call into question the very nature of "original" and "copy." The author shows impressive breadth and versatility in handling art historical material as well as Greek and Latin texts and in ranging convincingly from close observation of details to unexpectedly broad ramifications.

Judges for The Johns Hopkins University Press

Donald Mastronarde, Chair     Mary Jaeger     Ralph Rosen

The Twenty-third Annual Gildersleeve Prize of $1,000 will be awarded for the best article to appear in the Journal in 2011. The Press would like to thank the members of the committee for their time and effort.

William M. Breichner
Journals Publisher
The Johns Hopkins University Press