Vasileios Dimoglidis is a Ph.D. Candidate in Classical Philology at the University of Cincinnati. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Classics from the University of Ioannina in Greece. He is specializing in Greek & Roman Theater and Hellenistic Poetry. In his Ph.D. dissertation, Vasileios focuses on the construction of emotions in Theocritus' Idylls and the manipulation of his implied readers’ responses. Besides his dissertation, he is also working on a project that examines the symbolic values of the term caput in Seneca’s tragedies.

https://researchdirectory.uc.edu/p/dimoglvs

• University of Cincinnati

In my dissertation I examine how Theocritus’ Idylls create a poetics of emotion that is reader-oriented and deeply tied to narrative form. Informed by the 'affective narratology' theory, I argue that across the corpus, Theocritus has his figures generate complex affective scenarios within just a few lines, using shifts in focalization, embedded narratives, ecphrases, and genre play to shape the reader’s interpretive role. Emotions in the Idylls are not simply displayed; they are woven into the texture of storytelling, inviting readers to assess their meaning, plausibility, and poetic function. The text positions the external readers as active interpreters, guiding their emotional intelligence through subtle cues while leaving space for judgment and negotiation. This interpretive labor (distributed among the poem’s voices, structures, and stylistic layers) produces a poetry of feeling that thrives on ambiguity. The Idylls thus transform the act of reading into an exercise in affective understanding and narrative interpretation.

Hellenistic poetry, Greek and Roman theater, Pliny the Younger’s letters, ancient emotions, ancient readers’/audience’s responses, body metaphors, (meta)poetics, ancient performance, ethnographic discourses, nonverbal behavior