Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780199215508)

Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition combines close literary analysis of Bacchylides' poetry with detailed discussion of the central role poetry played in a variety of differing political contexts throughout Greece in the early fifth century BC. In Bacchylides' praise poetry, David Fearn argues, the poet manipulates a wide range of earlier Greek literature not only to elevate the status of his wealthy patrons, but also to provoke thought about the nature of political power and aristocratic society. New light is also shed on Bacchylides' Dithyrambs, through detailed discussion of the evidence for the kuklios khoros ('circular chorus') and its relation to a variety of different religious festivals, especially within democratic Athens. The links created between literary concerns and cultural contexts reinvigorate these underappreciated poems and reveal their central importance for the self-definition of political communities.

Author: David Fearn,David Fearns
ISBN-10: 0199215502
ISBN-13: 9780199215508
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Language: English
Published: 12/15/2007
Pages: 442
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.56lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 1.13d

Review Citation(s):
London Review of Books 07/31/2008 pg. 19