Callimachus in Context
From Plato to the Augustan Poets

A new, provocative treatment of the Alexandrian poet Callimachus and his reception, approaching his work from four varied yet complementary angles.

Benjamin Acosta-Hughes (Author), Susan A. Stephens (Author)

9781107008571, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 January 2012

344 pages, 4 maps
23.5 x 16 x 2.1 cm, 0.68 kg

Scholarly reception has bequeathed two Callimachuses: the Roman version is a poet of elegant non-heroic poetry (usually erotic elegy), represented by a handful of intertexts with a recurring set of images - slender Muse, instructing divinity, small voice, pure waters; the Greek version emphasizes a learned scholar who includes literary criticism within his poetry, an encomiast of the Ptolemies, a poet of the book whose narratives are often understood as metapoetic. This study aims to situate these Callimachuses within a series of interlocking historical and intellectual contexts in order better to understand how they arose. In this narrative of his poetics and poetic reception four main sources of creative opportunism are identified: Callimachus' reactions to philosophers and literary critics as arbiters of poetic authority, the potential of the text as a venue for performance, awareness of Alexandria as a new place, and finally, his attraction for Roman poets.

Introduction
1. Literary quarrels
2. Performing the text
3. Changing places
4. In my end is my beginning
Conclusions
Appendix: the Aetia.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]