Good Poem According to Philodemus

This book elucidates the poetics of Philodemus of Gadara, a first century BCE Epicurean philosopher and poet, whose On Poems survives in extensive fragments among the Herculaneum papyri. It relies on new editions of the primary sources to reconstruct a poetics focused on form and content.

List of contents

• Table of Contents


• Introduction: Philodemus and his prolepsis of the good poem


• 1. Epicurean poetics before Philodemus


• 2. Philodemus' terminology and opponents


• 3. Poetry as techne and the use of poetry


• 4. Form and content


• 5. The judgment of poems and their psychological effect


• 6. Conclusions


• 7. Appendix: An Epicurean critical miscellany

About the author

Michael McOsker is an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at the Universität zu Köln and, with David Armstrong, editor and translator of Philodemus' On Anger.

Summary

This book elucidates the poetics of Philodemus of Gadara, a first century BCE Epicurean philosopher and poet, whose On Poems survives in extensive fragments among the Herculaneum papyri. It relies on new editions of the primary sources to reconstruct a poetics focused on form and content.

Additional text

McOsker's book offers a splendid survey and critical account of Epicurean poetics, from the master himself down to our most important source for its entire tradition, Philodemus of Gadara, whose own poems are not only taken into account in McOsker's study of the theories, but are also treated as poems in their own right. Anybody interested in Hellenistic (and hence Latin) literary theory will want to read this book.

Product details

• Authors: Michael McOsker, Michael (Professor Mcosker
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.01.2022
• EAN: 9780190912819
• ISBN: 978-0-19-091281-9
• No. of pages: 328
• Subjects: Education and learning > Teaching preparation > Vocational needs; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Philosophy of Language, Perception, Poetry, LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry, LITERARY CRITICISM / Ancient & Classical, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical, POETRY / Ancient & Classical, Cognition and cognitive psychology, Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500, Poetry / Poems