Arion's Lyre: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry
Arion's Lyre Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 252
ISBN: 9780691095257
Pub Date: December 2010
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Price: £12.95   RRP: £45.00
In stock
Description:
This study examines how Hellenistic poetic culture adapted, reinterpreted, and transformed Archaic Greek lyric through a complex process of textual, cultural, and creative reception. Looking at the ways in which the poetry of Sappho, Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon, and Simonides was preserved, edited, and read by Hellenistic scholars and poets, the book shows that Archaic poets often look very different in the new social, cultural, and political setting of Hellenistic Alexandria. For example, the Alexandrian Sappho evolves from the singer of Archaic Lesbos but has distinct associations and contexts, from Ptolemaic politics and Macedonian queens to the new phenomenon of the poetry book and an Alexandrian scholarship intent on preservation and codification.