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Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition

Online ISBN:
9780191707018
Print ISBN:
9780199215508
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition

David Fearn
David Fearn
P. S. Allen Junior Research Fellow in Classics, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
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Published online:
1 February 2010
Published in print:
12 July 2007
Online ISBN:
9780191707018
Print ISBN:
9780199215508
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This book combines close literary analysis of Bacchylides' poetry with detailed discussion of the central role poetry played in a variety of differing political contexts throughout Greece in the early 5th century BC. In Bacchylides' praise poetry, it is argued, the poet manipulates a wide range of earlier Greek literature not only to elevate the status of his wealthy patrons, but also to provoke thought about the nature of political power and aristocratic society. New light is also shed on Bacchylides' Dithyrambs, through detailed discussion of the evidence for the kuklios khoros (‘circular chorus’) and its relation to a variety of different religious festivals, especially within democratic Athens. The links created between literary concerns and cultural contexts reinvigorate these underappreciated poems and reveal their central importance for the self-definition of political communities.

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