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Offering unparalleled scope, A Companion to Hellenistic Literature in 30 newly commissioned essays explores the social and intellectual contexts of literature production in the Hellenistic period, and examines the relationship between Hellenistic and earlier literature.
List of contents
List of Maps viii
Notes on Contributors ix
Preface xiv
Acknowledgments xvi
Abbreviations xvii
1 Introduction 1
James J. Clauss and Martine Cuypers
PART I Contexts 15
2 From Alexander to Augustus 17
Andrew Erskine
3 Literature and the Kings 30
Rolf Strootman
4 Ptolemaic Alexandria 46
Susan Stephens
5 Education 62
Jessica Wissmann
PART II Poetry 79
6 The Prefigured Muse: Rethinking a Few Assumptions on Hellenistic Poetics 81
Benjamin Acosta-Hughes
7 Callimachus' Aetia 92
Annette Harder
8 Hellenistic Elegy: Out from Under the Shadow of Callimachus 106
Jackie Murray
9 Epigram 117
Jon S. Bruss
10 Apollonius' Argonautica 136
Adolf Ko¨hnken
11 Narrative Hexameter Poetry 151
Annemarie Ambu¨hl
12 Hymns and Encomia 166
Anthony W. Bulloch
13 Sung Poetry: The Case of Inscribed Paeans 181
Marco Fantuzzi
14 Aratus 197
Katharina Volk
15 Nicander 211
Enrico Magnelli
16 The Bucolic Fiction of Theocritus 224
Mark Payne
17 Idyll 6 and the Development of Bucolic after Theocritus 238
J. D. Reed
18 Iambos and Parody 251
Ruth Scodel
19 Herodas and the Mime 267
Elena Esposito
20 Menander's Comedy 282
Susan Lape
21 Hellenistic Tragedy and Lycophron's Alexandra 297
Alexander Sens
PART III Prose 315
22 Historiography, Rhetoric, and Science: Rethinking a Few Assumptions on Hellenistic Prose 317
Martine Cuypers
23 Literary Criticism 337
Kathryn J. Gutzwiller
24 Philosophy after Aristotle 366
Stephen A. White
25 From Polybius to Dionysius: The Decline and Fall of Hellenistic Historiography 384
Alain M. Gowing
26 Prose Fiction 395
Tim Whitmarsh
PART IV Neighbors 413
27 Jewish Literature 415
Erich S. Gruen
28 Egyptian Literature 429
Jacco Dieleman and Ian S. Moyer
29 Literature in Western Asia 448
Silke Knippschild
30 From the Head of Zeus: The Beginnings of Roman Literature 463
James J. Clauss
Bibliography 479
Index 535
About the author
James J. Clauss is Professor of Classics at the University of Washington. He is the author of
The Best of the Argonauts: The Redefinition of the Epic Hero in Book 1 of Apollonius' Argonautica (1993) and the co-editor of
Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art (with S. I. Johnston, 1997).
Martine Cuypers is Lecturer in Greek at Trinity College Dublin. She is the co-editor of
Beginning from Apollo: Studies in Apollonius and the Argonautic Tradition (with M. A. Harder, 2005).
Summary
Offering unparalleled scope, A Companion to Hellenistic Literature in 30 newly commissioned essays explores the social and intellectual contexts of literature production in the Hellenistic period, and examines the relationship between Hellenistic and earlier literature.
Report
"New and interesting observations abound, and the volume as a whole offers a welcome introduction to an area of burgeoning scholarly interest. Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty." (Choice, 1 May 2011)
"Particularly notable are the concluding four chapters, on cross-cultural influence and exchange with western Asia, the Jewish world, Egyptian literature, and the early Roman world. Throughout the volume, individual authors and works are described in detail, with excerpts occurring frequently in the Greek original followed by English translation. Written to be accessible to advanced language students and the non-specialist, with many references to current events and media for context, the scholarship of this work is very high, making the volume a resource for scholars as well." (Book News, Inc., November 2010)
