A thesis presented to the Department of Comparative Literature in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Comparative Literature, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 1, 1980, published here by permission of the author. Read more
[[A preliminary version, originally published in Classical Inquiries 2015.10.01, of a chapter published in 2019: Lyric Genre, ed. Leslie Kurke, Margaret Foster, Naomi Weiss.]] Introduction §1. This essay is the third part of a tripartite project. The first part, “Genre and Occasion,” was published in ΜΗΤΙΣ (1994), and the second part, “Transmission of Archaic Greek Sympotic Songs: From Lesbos to Alexandria,” was published ten years later in Critical Inquiry… Read more
Margaret Alexiou’s The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, first published in 1974, has long since been established as a classic in several fields. This is the only generic and diachronic study of learned and popular lament and its socio-cultural contexts throughout Greek tradition in which a great diversity of sources are integrated to offer a comprehensive and penetrating synthesis. Its interdisciplinary orientation and broad scope have rendered The Ritual Lament in Greek… Read more
[[This article was first published in 1994 in Mètis: Anthropologie des mondes grecs anciens 9–10:11–25. In this online version, the original pagination will be indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{11|12}” indicates where p. 11 of the original article ends and p. 12 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look up references made in previous scholarship to the original printed version of this… Read more
[[This essay was originally published in 2004 in Critical Inquiry 31:26–48. In this online version, the original page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{26|27}” indicates where p. 26 of the printed version ends and p. 27 begins.]] This inquiry centers on the transmission of sympotic songs attributed to Alcaeus of Mytilene, a city on the island of Lesbos. The starting point of… Read more
[[This is an electronic version of an article that appeared in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 100 (2000) 97–118. In this online version, the original page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{97|98}” indicates where p. 97 of the printed version ends and p. 98 begins.]] This essay explores the idea of epic in relative rather than absolute terms, with specific reference to… Read more
[[This essay is an online version of an original printed version that appeared in The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy, ed. Karen Weisman (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2010) 13-45. In this online version, the original page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{13|14}” indicates where p. 13 of the printed version ends and p. 14 begins.]] The word elegy comes from the ancient… Read more
[[This essay is a 2010 online version of an original printed version that appeared as Chapter 1 in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Literature, ed. Richard Eldridge (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009) 19-44. In this online version, the original page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{19|20}” indicates where p. 19 of the printed version ends and p. 20 begins.]] What is… Read more
