Not available to order
Publication date:
28 November 1997Length of book:
352 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9780742569676
In this landmark collection of essays, renowned classicist Charles Segal offers detailed analyses of major texts from archaic and early classical Greek poetry; in particular, works of Alcman, Mimnermus, Sappho, Pindar, Bacchylides, and Corinna. Segal provides close readings of the texts, and then studies the literary form and language of early Greek lyric, the poets' conception of their aims and their art, the use of mythical paradigms, and the relation of the poems to their social context. A recurrent theme is the recognition of the fragility and brevity of mortal happiness and the consciousness of how the immortality conferred by poetry resists the ever-threatening presence of death and oblivion, fixing in permanent form the passing moments of joy and beauty. This is an essential book for students and scholars of ancient Greek poetry.
This volume brings together sixteen scattered articles on Greek lyric poetry by one of the most prolific and respected critics of classical literture in our time. . . .Some of [Segal's] finest work. . . .These essays will reward study by any serious student of Greek lyric....