Search

This volume is an edition of the poetical and grammatical fragments of Philitas of Cos, the early-Hellenistic scholar and poet who served as an exemplary model for the great Alexandrian poets. His output includes frivolous Hermes and Demeter which both had fundamental impact on later metapoetic imagery, and the Ataktoi Glossai, a glossary interpreting mainly Homeric idiom in pre-Aristarchean fashion.The body of the book consists of an Introduction discussing life, literary affiliations and metre; an edition of testimonies and fragments along with a commentary elucidating matters of language and influence on the scholar-poets, Propertius and Longus. The study of Philitas is brought up to date with new testimonies and new neglected sources for the fragments. Recent papyrological findings, verse inscriptions, lexicographic sources and inscriptions from Cos are taken into consideration. Passages dubiously ascribed to Philitas are discussed. The book closes with three Appendices and comprehensive Indexes.

Hellenistic Poetry has enjoyed a notable re-appreciation in recent years and received ample scholarly discussion, especially focusing on its reception and innovation of Greek poetic tradition. This book wishes to add to our picture of how Hellenistic poetry works by looking at it from a slightly different angle. Concentrating on the interaction between contemporary poets, it attempts to view the dynamics of imitation and reception in the light of poetical self-positioning. In the courtly Alexandrian surroundings, choosing a poetic model and affiliation determines one's position in the cultural field. This book sets out to chart, not only the well-known complexities of handling the poetic past, but especially their relation to the poetic interaction of the Hellenistic, in particular Alexandrian poets.

Taking a fresh look at the poetry and visual art of the Hellenistic age, from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. to the Romans'defeat of Cleopatra in 30 B.C., Graham Zanker makes enlightening discoveries about the assumptions and conventions of Hellenistic poets and artists and their audiences. Zanker's exciting new interpretations closely compare poetry and art for the light each sheds on the other. He finds, for example, an exuberant expansion of subject matter in the Hellenistic periods in both literature and art, as styles and iconographic traditions reserved for grander concepts in earlier eras were applied to themes, motifs, and subjects that were emphatically less grand.