Chapter Two. Homer the Classic in the Age of Callimachus 2ⓢ1. An esthetics of fluidity 2§1 Homeric poetry imagines itself as rigid – that is, unchanging like the petrified serpent in Iliad II. That is what I was arguing in Chapter 1. But there is more to it. As I will now argue in Chapter 2, this three-dimensional vision of arrested motion is being expressed by… Read more
Chapter One. Homer the Classic in the Age of Virgil 1ⓢ1.An esthetics of rigidity 1§1 The poetry of Virgil, I take it as a given, rivals that of Homer. Historically, Virgil the Classic even displaced Homer the Classic in the Latin culture of the Roman empire (though not in the Greek) – already in the age of Virgil. But the question is: what is it exactly… Read more
Prolegomena: A classical text of Homer in the making Pⓢ1. The Homeric Koine P§1 Homer the Classic centers on ancient concepts of Homer as the author of a body of poetry that we know as the Iliad and Odyssey. This body of poetry, this corpus, became a classical text, but it started as something else. That something, as I have argued in earlier projects, is oral… Read more
Author’s Preface The on-line publication date for this book is 2008, since it was “born digital” in that year on the website of the Center for Hellenic Studies. The print publication date is 2009. In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70… Read more
About the Contributors DEBORAH BOEDEKER, Professor of Classics at Brown University, works mainly on archaic and classical Greek poetry, historiography, and religion. Her publications include Aphrodite’s Entry into Greek Epic; Descent from Heaven: Images of Dew in Greek Poetry and Religion; and essays on Herodotus, lyric poetry, Athenian religion, Simonides, tragedy, and traditions about the Persian Wars. She has edited and co-edited a number of volumes, including… Read more
Chapter 13. The “New Sappho” Reconsidered in the Light of the Athenian Reception of Sappho Gregory Nagy The text of the “New Sappho,” found in a Cologne papyrus dated to the third century BCE (P.Köln inv. 21351 + 21376), is different from a later text of Sappho, found in an Oxyrhynchus papyrus dated to the second or third century CE (P.Oxy. 1787). In the two papyri,… Read more
Chapter 12. A Reading of Sappho Poem 58, Fragment 31 and Mimnermus [1] Marguerite Johnson Much has been written on the Sapphic gaze, primarily in relation to the representation of the various personae in her poems and fragments. [2] I would like to address this subject as it relates to the poet’s depiction of herself, or… Read more
Chapter 11. Sappho 58: Philosophical Reflections on Death and Aging [1] Ellen Greene Although most contemporary scholars are in agreement that Sappho’s verse appropriates themes and poetic conventions employed by both Homer and male lyric poets, there is considerable disagreement about the extent to which Sappho’s extant poetry ought to be considered ‘woman-centered,’ that is, poetry chiefly concerned with love, sexuality,… Read more
Chapter 10. The New Sappho in a Hellenistic Poetry Book [1] Dee Clayman While most of the interest in the “New Sappho” (Köln. Inv. Nr. 21351 + 21376) has rightly centered on the “Tithonus” poem, fragments of another precede it on the Cologne papyrus and parts of a third follow. [2] I argue below that the… Read more
Chapter 9. “Once” and “Now”: Temporal Markers and Sappho’s Self-Representation Eva Stehle It is well known that memory plays an important role in Sappho’s poetry. As scholars have emphasized, Sappho vividly evokes the past, even “blurs” past and present, through her poetic recall. [1] But the fragment and the apparently complete poem yielded by the new Cologne papyri call attention to… Read more
