A Hellenistic AnthologyNeil Hopkinson An anthology of Greek poetry written during the third to first centuries B.C., the so-called Hellenistic period. Hopkinson makes available to undergraduates a selection of texts that are not easily accessible elsewhere. The volume contains a wide and representative range of poetry, including hymns, didactic verse, pastoral poetry, epigrams, and epics. An introduction sets the poetry in its cultural and historical background, and a full commentary elucidates problems of the language and reference in the texts. |
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Page 1 - Blessed indeed the man who was skilled in song in those days, a 'servant of the Muses' when the meadow was still undefiled! Now, when everything has been portioned out and the arts have reached their limits, we are left behind in the race, and one looks everywhere in vain for a place to drive one's newly yoked chariot.
Page 8 - It is tempting to go further and to suggest that "self-consciousness" is a prime characteristic of many Hellenistic poems, which by alluding to and echoing earlier writers seek to draw attention to their own place in the poetic tradition, to point their similarities to and differences from past literature .... These are texts to be read through other texts; learning and allusion are absolutely integral to their meaning.
Page 11 - To this rarefied urban audience the simple life of rustics and the lower classes appealed because such people were outside their own experience and, paradoxically, 'exotic'.