Poetry and Poetics in the Presocratic Philosophers

Reading Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles as Literature

Tom Mackenzie

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781108843935
• eBook ISBN: 9781108922876
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Of the Presocratic thinkers traditionally credited with the foundation of Greek philosophy, Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles are exceptional for writing in verse. This is the first book-length, literary-critical study of their work. It locates the surviving fragments in their performative and wider cultural contexts, applying intertextual and intratextual analyses in order to reconstruct the significance and impact they conveyed for ancient audiences and readers. Building on insights from literary theory and the philosophy of literature, the book sheds new light on these authors' philosophical projects and enriches our appreciation of their works as literary artefacts. It also expands our knowledge of the genres in which they wrote, of the literary culture of the Western Greek world, and of the development of Greek poetics from the Archaic to the Classical periods, exposing the influence of these thinkers on more famous Sophistic and Platonic ideas about literature.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Note on Fragment Numbers
• Introduction: Philosophy and Poetry, Truth and Symbolism
• Chapter 1 Xenophanes
• Chapter 2 Parmenides
• Chapter 3 Empedocles
• Conclusion
• Epilogue: The Legacy of Presocratic Poetics
• Bibliography
• Index