The Poets of Alexandria

Susan A. Stephens

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781848858800
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781838609603
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Alexandria was the greatest of the new cities founded by Alexander the Great as his armies swept eastward. It was ruled by his successors, the Ptolemies, who presided over one of the richest and most productive periods in the whole of Greek literature. Susan A Stephens here reveals a cultural world in transition: reverential of the compositions of the past (especially after construction of the great library, repository for all previous Greek oeuvres), but at the same time forward-looking and experimental, willing to make use of previous forms of writing in exciting new ways. The author examines Alexandria's poets in turn. She discusses the strikingly avant-garde Aetia of Callimachus; the idealized pastoral forms of Theocritus (which anticipated the invention of fiction); and the neo-Homerian epic of Apollonius, the Argonautica, with its impressive combination of narrative grandeur and psychological acuity. She shows that all three poets were innovators, even while they looked to the past for inspiration: drawing upon Homer, Hesiod, Pindar and the lyric poets, they emphasized stories and material that were entirely relevant to their own progressive cosmopolitan environment.

INDEX

abandonment 69

Achilles 8, 61, 143

Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (Handel) 157

Acontius and Cydippe (Callimachus) 95, 147

Acontius and Cydippe (Kauffmann) 156

Actaeon 106–7

Adonis 78

Aeetes 117

Aegina 138–9

Aegon 69, 71

Aegyptus 9

Aeneid (Virgil) 105–6, 119, 148

Aeolic (dialect) 5

Aeschinas 75, 76

Aeschylus 15

Aesop 71

aesthetics 86–91

aesthetics of miniature

see miniature, the

Aetia (Callimachus) 7, 22, 23, 86, 91–7

and aesthetics 87

and Argonauts 116

and Heracles 67–8

and influence 148

and Ovid 143

and sculpture 44–5

Agias 93

Aiora festival 97

aitia see causes

Alcaeus 40

Alexander of Aetolia 18, 20, 21

Alexander the Great 2, 6, 10, 17, 46

and Apollonius 134

and conquests 30, 32

and diadem 39–40

and Gordian knot 37, 38

and kinship 117

and omens 26, 35, 36

and Ptolemy I 21

and Theocritus 80

Alexandria 1, 2, 5–8, 12–15, 142–3

and Callimachus 95–6, 98, 113

and civic organization 9–10

and foundation 10–11

and Posidippus 29

and temples 16–17

and Theocritus 77–8

Alexandrian Library 3, 15, 17–18, 20–1

Alexandrianism 155–6

Alexipharmaca (Nicander) 20

Amasis 41

Amycus 68–9

Anabasis (Xenopho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Understanding Classics
• Title Page
• Contents
• Maps
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Transliteration
• Introduction: Changing Places
• I · The Canon of Truth: Posidippus of Pella
• II · The Bucolic Imagination: Theocritus of Syracuse
• III · Beyond the Reach of Envy: Callimachus of Cyrene
• IV · Destiny’s Voyage: Apollonius of Rhodes
• V · Afterwards
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• eCopyright