The Poetics of Imitation: Anacreon and the Anacreontic TraditionWestern literature knows the anacreontic poems best in the translations and adaptations of such poets as Ronsard, Herrick and Goethe. This collection of poems, once assumed to be the work of Anacreon himself, was considered unworthy of serious attention after the poems were proved to be late Hellenistic and early Roman imitations by anonymous writers. This book, the first full-length treatment of the anacreontic corpus, rejects the assumption that the later poets were trying to pass themselves off as Anacreon, and explores the complex poetics of imitation which inspired anacreontic composition for so many centuries in antiquity. The author begins with a reassessment of Anacreon's own oeuvre, and then discusses the system of selective imitation practiced by the anacreontic poets Individual chapters offer close readings of these sophisticated and allusive poems. the book also explores what light the corpus can shed on ancient literary genres, intertextual influences, and the literary manifestations of symposiastic and erotic ideals in a post-classical society which looks back to an archaic model as its guiding force. The book concludes with a brief look at Byzantine adaptations and the anacreontic renaissance in Europe. A full translation of the anacreontic collection is included as an appendix, and all Greek and Latin is translated to make the work available to those whose primary interest is European literature and the classical tradition. -- publisher description. |
Contents
the role of Anacreon as model | 12 |
the model revised | 50 |
a sterile abundance of words | 74 |
The anacreontic anthology | 115 |
The allusive text | 147 |
Byzantium and beyond | 225 |
A translation of the anacreontic poems | 239 |
267 | |
283 | |
Other editions - View all
The Poetics of Imitation: Anacreon and the Anacreontic Tradition Patricia A. Rosenmeyer,Anacreon No preview available - 1992 |
The Poetics of Imitation: Anacreon and the Anacreontic Tradition Patricia A. Rosenmeyer No preview available - 1992 |
The Poetics of Imitation: Anacreon and the Anacreontic Tradition Patricia A. Rosenmeyer No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
Achilles Achilles Tatius Agathias Alcaeus Alciphron allusion anac anacr Anacreontea anacreontic collection anacreontic corpus anacreontic imitation anacreontic poet anacreontic texts anaphora ancient Aphrodite Apollo archaic Archilochus artistic Athenaeus authors Bathyllus beauty beloved Callimachus catalogue century A.D. claims context conventional critics dance Dionysus discussion dream drink my wine ecphrasis epic epigram epigrammatists Eros erotic example fragments garlands genre Greek Anthology hair heart Hellenistic Hesiod Homer hymn influence inspiration later letter lines literary literature lover lyre lyric M. L. West madness Meleager metaphor meter motifs Muses narrator offers Pausanias Philostratus Pindar Plato poem poet's poetic reader recusatio reference repetition rhetorical rose Sappho Silenus similar sing skolia Socrates song specific statue Stephanus suggests sweet symposiastic symposium sympotic theme Theocritus tradition vase verses wings wish words wreath δὲ ἐγὼ ἐν θέλω καὶ μέλει μὲν μοι οἶνον οὐκ τε τὸ τὸν