Callimachus in Context (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781107470644)

Scholarly reception has bequeathed two Callimachuses: the Roman version is a poet of elegant non-heroic poetry (usually erotic elegy), represented by a handful of intertexts with a recurring set of images - slender Muse, instructing divinity, small voice, pure waters; the Greek version emphasizes a learned scholar who includes literary criticism within his poetry, an encomiast of the Ptolemies, a poet of the book whose narratives are often understood as metapoetic. This study does not dismiss these Callimachuses, but situates them within a series of interlocking historical and intellectual contexts in order better to understand how they arose. In this narrative of his poetics and poetic reception four main sources of creative opportunism are identified: Callimachus' reactions to philosophers and literary critics as arbiters of poetic authority, the potential of the text as a venue for performance, awareness of Alexandria as a new place, and finally, his attraction for Roman poets.

Author: Benjamin Acosta-Hughes, Susan A. Stephens
ISBN-10: 1107470641
ISBN-13: 9781107470644
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/21/2015
Pages: 344
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.02lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.72d