Apollonius (Rhodius)

Benjamin Acosta-Hughes

King Pelias insisted, so they drove the tautly fitted Argo up through the narrows of the Pontic Sea and past the Cobalt Clashing Rocks to win the golden fleece. Now in a riveting verse translation, Jason and the Argonauts (also known as the Argonautica) is the only surviving full account of Jason's voyage on the Argo in quest of the golden fleece with the aid of the sorceress-princess Medea. Written in Alexandria in the third century BCE, Apollonius' strikingly modern telling of a classic myth is an exemplary product of an emerging multicultural metropolis. Though Apollonius used the manner and matter of Homeric epics, he wrote from a personal viewpoint, critically observing one of the most beloved heroes of Greek mythology. In its combination of the fantastical and the real, the Argonautica is truly without exact parallel in classical or contemporary Greek literature and provides an experience close to magical. Translated by Aaron Poochigian Introduction and Notes bv Benjamin Acosta-Hughes

Jason and the Argonauts

Assistant Professor of Greek and Latin Benjamin Acosta-Hughes

The poems are especially significant as examples of cultural memory since they are composed both as an act of commemorating earlier poetry and as a manipulation of traditional features of iambic poetry to refashion the iambic genre. This book fills a significant gap by providing the first complete translation of several of these fragmentary poems in English, along with line-by-line commentary notes and literary analysis.".

The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition

Polyeideia

This book provides a new literary treatment of an often-overlooked collection of fragmentary poems from the third century B.C.E. Alexandrian poet Callimachus. Callimachus' Iambi form a collection of thirteen poems, which rework archaic Greek iambography and look forward to Roman satire and other genres, especially to such collections as Horace's Epodes. The poems are especially significant as examples of cultural memory since they are composed both as an act of commemorating earlier poetry and as a manipulation of traditional features of iambic poetry to refashion the iambic genre. This book fills a significant gap by providing the first complete translation of several of these fragmentary poems in English, along with line-by-line commentary, notes, and literary analysis. The structure of the book is thematic, with chapters focusing on such topics as poetic voice, fable, ethical criticism, and statuary. Each chapter consists of an introduction, text and selected critical apparatus, translation, and comprehensive thematic discussion. Acosta-Hughes focuses especially on Callimachus' manipulation of traditional features of archaic iambic poetry such as persona loquens, ethical and critical message, and eristic dialogue. He also includes a detailed analysis of the Alexandrian poet's artistic relationship with the earlier iambic poets Archilochus and Hipponax. Polyeideia will interest not only readers of Greek and Hellenistic poetry but also readers of Roman satire and invective verse, as well as those intrigued by the processes of memorializing and fashioning poetic culture.

Susan Stephens

Luigi Lehnus

This volume is the combined effort of over thirty scholars. They analyize Callimachus, the 3rd-century Alexandrian poet, from literary and technical perspectives, reception and influence. It is designed to facilitate the work of scholars and teachers in the classroom.

Brill's Companion to Callimachus

Arion's Lyre examines how Hellenistic poetic culture adapted, reinterpreted, and transformed Archaic Greek lyric through a complex process of textual, cultural, and creative reception. Looking at the ways in which the poetry of Sappho, Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon, and Simonides was preserved, edited, and read by Hellenistic scholars and poets, the book shows that Archaic poets often look very different in the new social, cultural, and political setting of Hellenistic Alexandria. For example, the Alexandrian Sappho evolves from the singer of Archaic Lesbos but has distinct associations and contexts, from Ptolemaic politics and Macedonian queens to the new phenomenon of the poetry book and an Alexandrian scholarship intent on preservation and codification. A study of Hellenistic poetic culture and an interpretation of some of the Archaic poets it so lovingly preserved, Arion's Lyre is also an examination of how one poetic culture reads another--and how modern readings of ancient poetry are filtered and shaped by earlier readings.

Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry

Arion's Lyre

Susan A. Stephens

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

Benjamin Acosta-Hughes

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