Archilochus: The Poems: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary - Hardcover

Swift, Laura

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198768079 ISBN 13: 9780198768074

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2019

Synopsis

In antiquity Archilochus of Paros was considered a poet rivalled only by Homer and Hesiod, yet he has been relatively neglected by modern scholarship. This is largely due to the fragmentary state of his surviving poetry, though our knowledge has expanded significantly since the middle of the twentieth century as new papyrological finds continue to augment the corpus and our understanding of the poet and his work evolves. This volume is the first ever complete commentary on Archilochus, filling a substantial gap in scholarship on archaic Greek poetry and playing an important and timely role in re-establishing him as a major author and in locating the recent discoveries in the broader context of his oeuvre. Presenting the fragmentary texts alongside brand new translations, the volume also contains a comprehensive introduction offering an accessible guide to Archilochus' work and context, and a detailed commentary providing textual, literary, and historical analysis of all of his surviving poetry and discussing broader questions of performance and genre in early Greek poetic culture. The scope and depth of the analysis not only highlights the diversity and sophistication of Archilochus' work, but also sheds new light on our understanding of Greek iambus and elegy, while his influence on later writers means that the commentary will be of significance to scholars and students of Hellenistic and Roman literature, and the later lyric tradition, as well as archaic and classical Greek literature.

About this title

About the Author

Laura Swift, Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies, the Open University

Laura Swift is Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies at the Open University. Her publications include Greek Tragedy: Themes and Contexts (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), The Hidden Chorus: Echoes of Genre in Tragic Lyric (OUP, 2010), and Euripides: Ion (Bloomsbury Academic, 2008), as well as numerous articles on tragedy and lyric poetry.

Review

"Laura Swift has indisputably succeeded in her stated aim 'to provide literary and historical analysis of Archilochus's poetry, and to set individual fragments within the wider context of the poet's work and early Greek song culture in general'." -- Colin Leach, Classics for All

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0198768079
• ISBN 13: 9780198768074
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 504