Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture

A leading Hellenist has compiled his contributions to early Greek literature, including elegiac poetry, epic, iambic, melic, and epigrammatic poetry, exploring the importance of long narrative elegies and the performance contexts of papyri. He also challenges the view that Sappho composed and performed chiefly for audiences of young girls, suggesting she was a virtuoso singer and lyre-player. Two more volumes of collected papers will follow.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 884 pages
Publication date: 30 March 2023
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Here is the rephrased text:

In this comprehensive book, one of the world's foremost Hellenists brings together his extensive contributions spanning four decades to our understanding of early Greek literature, particularly in the realms of elegiac poetry and its intricate relationship with fifth-century prose historiography. However, his expertise extends to early Greek epic, iambic, melic, and epigrammatic poetry as well. Numerous chapters have achieved seminal status, such as the one that initially proposed the significance of now-lost long narrative elegies, while others delve into the performance contexts of these fragments, which were discovered in papyri published in 1992 and 2005. Another chapter challenges the prevailing notion that Sappho primarily composed and performed for audiences of young girls, suggesting instead that she was a virtuoso singer and lyre-player, captivating men in the elite symposia explored in several other chapters of this book. Two additional volumes of collected papers are forthcoming, dedicated to exploring later Greek literature and culture in greater detail.

Weight: 1482g
Dimension: 170 x 246 x 57 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781107692091