Post-Classical Greek Elegy and Lyric Poetry

137 Pages·2021·0.989 MB·English

by  Robin Greene

Post-Classical Greek Elegy and Lyric Poetry
Classical Poetry
Editor-in-Chief
Scott McGill (Rice University)
Associate Editors
Jackie Murray (University of Kentucky)
Sophia Papaioannou (University of Athens)
Jonathan L. Ready (Indiana University)
Catherine Ware (University College Cork)
Volumes published in this Brill Research Perspectives title are listed at brill.com/rpcp
Post-Classical Greek Elegy
and Lyric Poetry
By
Robin J. Greene
LEIDEN | BOSTON
This paperback book edition is simultaneously published as issue 2.2 (2020) of Classical Poetry,
DOI:10.1163/25892649-12340004
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
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ISBN 978-90-04-46924-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-90-04-46926-6 (e-book)
Copyright 2021 by Robin J. Greene. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Contents
Post-Classical Greek Elegy and Lyric Poetry 1
Robin J. Greene
Abstract 1
Keywords 1
General Introduction 1
Part 1: Elegy 5
1.1 Overview 5
1.2 Elegiac Catalogues and Collections 7
1.3 Callimachus’ Aetia 24
1.4 “Local” Elegy 43
1.5 Elegiac Philosophy and Science 48
1.6 Conclusions 57
Part 2: Lyric 58
2.1 Overview 58
2.2 Performed Lyric 60
2.3 Literary Lyric 82
2.4 Conclusions 96
Abbreviations 98
Bibliography 98

Post-Classical Greek Elegy and Lyric Poetry
Robin J. Greene
Providence College, RI, USA
[email protected]
Abstract
This volume traces the development of Greek elegy and lyric in the hands of Hellenistic
and Roman-era poets, from literary superstars such as Callimachus and Theocritus to
more obscure, often anonymous authors. Designed as a guide for advanced students
and scholars working in adjacent fields, this volume introduces and explores the diverse
body of surviving later Greek elegy and lyric, contextualizes it within Hellenistic and
Roman culture and politics, and surveys contemporary critical interpretations, meth-
odological approaches, and avenues for future study.
Keywords
Greek elegy  – Greek lyric poetry  – Hellenistic  – imperial  – performance  –
book culture – aetiology – catalogue poetry – popular song – paean – literary
theory – genre – intertextuality
General Introduction
It has become commonplace to begin overviews of post-classical Greek
poetry by stressing the fundamental and enduring social and political changes
wrought upon the Hellenic world by the conquests of Alexander and the sub-
sequent rise of the Hellenistic kingdoms, and not without good reason. As
scholars routinely emphasize, many of the distinct archaic and classical occa-
sions for poetry – performance contexts that had been intrinsically linked to
the development and differentiation of poetic genres – were transformed,
eclipsed, or abandoned in this period, particularly with the diminishing role of
the citizen in what had once been polis-based poetic performance (e.g., genres
© Robin J. Greene, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004469266_002
2 Greene
of choral lyric).1 Instead, organized associations professionalized much of pop-
ular poetic performance (below, 2.2), while royal patrons often supported the
upper echelons of Hellenistic literati. The reduced role of the citizen in poetry
led some scholars in the twentieth century to espouse the view that the erudite
Hellenistic poets cared only for aesthetics in the wake of poetry’s perceived
impotence to respond to politics or contemporary social issues.2 However,
that “l’art pour l’art” perspective has long since been abandoned, and much
of current scholarship, as we shall see, considers the roles played by poetry –
elite and popular – in reflecting and often supporting the concerns, images,
and ideologies fostered by Hellenistic rulers and others among the politically
powerful (below, e.g., 1.3.5; 2.2–2.3). Scholars’ frequent comparisons to similar
relationships between poets and tyrants in the archaic period underscore the
continued, if altered, vitality of poetry as a medium for both articulating cul-
tural values and promoting political positions.3
Hellenistic poetry’s decoupling from occasion coincided with the onset and
dominance of “book culture,” a phenomenon most associated with the great
centers of the new monarchies but certainly not limited to them.4 The litera-
ture of the past flooded into places like Alexandria and Pergamum, and the
learned poets there largely experienced the works of authors like Pindar and
Sappho as text-based literature. In turn, new literary tastes privileged compos-
ing in poetic forms amenable to easy textualization, i.e., dactylic and elegiac
meters as opposed to the melic, strophic, non-stichic forms associated with
archaic lyric.5 Regardless of their preferred meter, however, poets’ access to
and interest in the whole spectrum of the Greek literary past through texts
facilitated their cultivation of some of Hellenistic poetry’s most fundamental
features, namely its dynamic and often allusive engagement with earlier works
and models,6 for which scholars tend to favor intertextual approaches for
interpretation, and its self-conscious incorporation of elements culled from
different genres into elegiac and hexametric verse. Such generic experimenta-
tion is often identified as Kreuzung der Gattungen, “crossing genres,” a term
1 Excellent introductory discussions provided by Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 17–41; Krevans
and Sens 2006; Barbantani 2009; Sistakou 2017b.
2 E.g., Bonelli 1979, esp. 5–9; Schwinge 1986, esp. 44–47.
3 E.g., Hunter 1996, 1–3; Krevans and Sens 2006, 193; D’Alessio 2007, 1.14–15; Morrison 2007,
12–14; Kampakoglou 2019, 20–21.
4 The much-cited third century Lille papyrus of Callimachus’ Victory of Berenice found in the
Fayum, for example, indicates the spread of poetry as text beyond the cultural hubs of cities
like Alexandria, on which see, e.g., Parsons 1977; Bing 2009, 111–112.
5 Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 27–28.
6 For a history of Pasquali’s “arte allusiva” from its beginnings through the works of such schol-
ars as Croce, Giangrande, Conte, and into contemporary approaches, see Citroni 2011.
Post-Classical Greek Elegy and Lyric Poetry 3
challenged for its implications of a pre-existing notion of generic purity and as
“too blunt a tool” to describe the intricate interplay of genres in ancient litera-
ture.7 Yet, regardless of the terminology used, Hellenistic generic exploration
and its transplantation of specific generic qualities into various other types of
poetry encourage us to perceive genres as active processes rather than static
categories.8 For example, as discussed below in section 1.3.4, Callimachus’ two
elegiac epinicians for athletic victors, perhaps performed at court or in simi-
larly exclusive elite gatherings, adapted the tones and practices of the past,
especially Pindaric epinician, into a form aligned with contemporary tastes
and performance settings much removed from the public archaic occasions of
encomiastic praise for athletes.
The question of potential performance contexts for Callimachus’ ele-
giac epinicians brings us to the modern debate regarding “high” Hellenistic
poetry’s audience. On the one hand, many scholars understand such poetry
as principally text-based literature designed for circulation as texts, though
more recent formulations admit recitative performance in such settings as
the royal courts and exclusive symposia.9 However, others downplay, to vary-
ing degrees, the role of book culture, a position principally championed by
Cameron, and emphasize the proliferation of performance opportunities for
the circulation of poetry beyond the “ivory tower,” e.g., musical agones and
cult festivals, as well as symposia.10 While the first position perceives a duality
in the experience of Hellenistic literature, a divide between “high” and “low”
poetry, the other side argues for more cohesion and continuity between the
sophisticated poetry produced in cultural centers like Alexandria and the
typically-performed poetry aimed at popular consumption. In recent years, as
we shall see in Part 2, many scholars have reconsidered the complex relation-
ships between performed poetry and “book” or literary poetry, and their work
7 Quoting Morrison 2007, 19. Kreuzung der Gattungen was first proposed by Kroll 1924,
202–204. The practice and terminology are extensively discussed amongst ancient genre
theorists, e.g., Rossi 1971; Fantuzzi 1993; Hinds 2000; Rossi 2000; Barchiesi 2001; Farrell
2003; Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 17–41; Harrison 2007, esp. 2–18; Acosta-Hughes and
Stephens 2017.
8 Moreover, as Carey 2009, Acosta-Hughes 2010b, and Murray 2010, 108 (among others)
observe, archaic and classical genres were hardly static or “pure” generic phenomena.
9 E.g., Zanker 1987, 1–37; Bing 1988; Gentili 1988, 169–176; Fantuzzi 1988, xxxiv–xlii; Fantuzzi
1993; Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 17–41; Hunter 2003; Bing 2009; Montana 2015, 60–67. Cf.,
e.g., Bing and Bruss, 2007; Bruss 2010, 124–129; Höschele 2010, 27–37 on sympotic recita-
tion/performance, though see the doubts of Kwapisz 2014.
10 E.g., Cameron 1995, esp. 44–103; Falkner 2002, esp. 343–344; Krevans and Sens 2006, 192–
194; Acosta-Hughes and Stephens 2012; Sbardella 2019.