The Cup of Song

Studies on Poetry and the Symposion

Dirk Obbink editor Vanessa Cazzato editor Enrico Emanuele Prodi editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:29th Sep '16

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Cup of Song cover

The symposion is arguably the most significant and well-documented context for the performance, transmission, and criticism of archaic and classical Greek poetry, a distinction attested by its continued hold on the poetic imagination even after its demise as a performance setting. The Cup of Song explores the symbiotic relationship of poetry and the symposion throughout Greek literary history, considering the latter both as a literal performance context and as an imaginary space pregnant with social, political, and aesthetic implications. This collection of essays by an international group of leading scholars illuminates the various facets of this relationship, from Greek literature's earliest beginnings through to its afterlife in Roman poetry, ranging from the Near Eastern origins of the Greek symposion in the eighth century to Horace's evocations of his archaic models and Lucian's knowing reworking of classic texts. Each chapter discusses one aspect of sympotic engagement by key authors across the major genres of Greek poetry, including archaic and classical lyric, tragedy and comedy, and Hellenistic epigram; discussions of literary sources are complemented by analysis of the visual evidence of painted pottery. Consideration of these diverse modes and genres from the unifying perspective of their relation to the symposion leads to a characterization of the full spectrum of sympotic poetry that retains an eye to both its shared common features and the specificity of individual genres and texts.

This volume reminds us of just how many angles there are to studying the symposion, just how many methodologies, just how many media, and just how many time periods. It will undoubtedly galvanise more nuanced future research which will takes up the challenge of working across disciplines. * Max Leventhal, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *

ISBN: 9780199687688

Dimensions: 241mm x 159mm x 26mm

Weight: 692g

352 pages