A wide representative range of poetry, including hymns, didactic verse, pastoral poetry, epigrams and epics is supplemented by a cultural and historical introduction and commentary clarifying problems of language and text.

An annotated selection of Hellenistic Greek poetic texts, thoroughly updated and substantially expanded in this second edition.

This book is an anthology of Greek poetry written during the third to first centuries BC, the Hellenistic period. It is intended to make available to undergraduates and graduate students a selection of texts which are for the most part not easily accessible elsewhere. The volume contains a wide and representative range of poetry including hymns, didactic verse, pastoral poetry, epigrams and epic. An introduction provides cultural and historical background, and a full commentary elucidates problems of language and reference in the texts. In this second edition, many notes have been rewritten and the bibliography has been updated. The selection has also been augmented with three hundred more lines of Greek text (Theocritus poems 5 and 15), and is now more than 2000 lines in length.

"Fowler's . . . own insights are apparent throughout, and they seem to distill the personal appreciation and understanding of a scholar who has devoted much of her career to both contemplating and enjoying Hellenistic poetry. . . . [This book] would make an excellent background text for courses in later Greek and Roman art, and it can be read with profit by anyone interested in exploring the character of Hellenistic culture."--J. J. Pollitt, American Journal of Archaeology "Outstanding is the range of examples discussed both in poetry and art. Theocritus, Callimachus, Appolonius, the epigrammatists, and others--that is, the major figures of the time--are considered at length and in several different contexts. Passages are quoted in the original Greek, translated, and analyzed. Fowler's sensitivity to poetic forms, evident in her other published writings, is again evident here. In addition, however, the philosophical context is not overlooked. . . . Also highly commendable are the liberal references to works of art. Sculpture in the round and in relief, portraits, terracotta figurines, original paintings (grave stelai) and Campanian murals, mosaics, gold and silver vessels, and jewelry are introduced at various points. Every work of art discussed is illustrated in astonishingly clear photographs, which are interspersed in the body of the text."--Christine Mitchell Havelock "The Hellenistic Aesthetic provides classicists with their first thorough discussion of the aesthetic unity found in Hellenistic art and literature. . . . Fowler examines parallels both in subject matter and in artistic approach among a diverse group of literary genres and artistic forms. In twelve chapters, The Hellenistic Aesthetic surveys Alexandrian epigrams, pastorals, epics, sculptural groups, mosaics, paintings, and jewelry to supply a convincing, and frequently unexpected, picture of a unified aesthetic vision."--Jeffrey Buller, Classical Outlook

An accomplished poet and classical scholar, Barbara Hughes Fowler brings Hellenistic poetry to life for the contemporary reader. Her selections engage us with the full range of Hellenistic poetic genres, styles, themes, and moods. The anthology includes Fowler's new translation of the entire Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, and eight of Theocritus' Idylls, including the beautiful, sensuous description of late summer in Idyll VII and the shrewdly comical description of two young matrons venturing into the noisy streets of Alexandria in Idyll XV. There are translations of four hymns of Callimachus, as well as poems by Aratus, Bion, Herodas, Moschus, Pseudo-Moschus, and a substantial selection from the Greek Anthology. An ideal companion to her recently published book, The Hellenistic Aesthetic, Barbara Fowler's Hellenistic Poetry is both a major contribution to classical studies and an invitation to all interested readers to discover the beauty and richness of Hellenistic poetry.

In a 1988 conference, American and British scholars unexpectedly discovered that their ideas were converging in ways that formed a new picture of the variegated Hellenistic mosaic. That picture emerges in these essays and eloquently displays the breadth of modern interest in the Hellenistic Age. A distrust of all ideologies has altered old views of ancient political structures, and feminism has also changed earlier assessments. The current emphasis on multiculturalism has consciously deemphasized the Western, Greco-Roman tradition, and Nubians, Bactrians, and other subject peoples of the time are receiving attention in their own right, not just as recipients of Greco-Roman culture. History, like Herakleitos' river, never stands still. These essays share a collective sense of discovery and a sparking of new ideas—they are a welcome beginning to the reexploration of a fascinatingly complex age.

This book contains a selection of pagan Greek poetic texts ranging in date from the first to the sixth century AD. It makes easily accessible for the first time work by poets such as Quintus Smyrnaeus, Nonnus, Musaeus and Babrius hitherto neglected in Classical syllabuses. Genres represented include epic, epyllion, didactic, epigram, lyric and the verse fable. There is a brief general introduction, and in addition each section of detailed commentary is prefaced by a discussion of literary aspects of the poems and of their wider contexts. The book is intended primarily for undergraduate and graduate students of Greek, but will be of interest also to Classical scholars.

Epigrams, the briefest of Greek poetic forms, had a strong appeal for readers of the Hellenistic period (323-31 B.C.). One of the most characteristic literary forms of the era, the epigram, unlike any other ancient or classical form of poetry, was not only composed for public recitation but was also collected in books intended for private reading. Brief and concise, concerned with the personal and the particular, the epigram emerged in the Hellenistic period as a sophisticated literary form that evinces the period's aesthetic preference for the miniature, the intricate, and the fragmented. Kathryn Gutzwiller offers the first full-length literary study of these important poems by studying the epigrams within the context of the poetry books in which they were originally collected. Drawing upon ancient sources as well as recent papyrological discoveries, Gutzwiller reconstructs the nature of Hellenistic epigram books and interprets individual poems as if they remained part of their original collections. This approach results in illuminating and original readings of many major poets, and demonstrates that individual epigrammatists were differentiated by gender, ethnicity, class status, and philosophical views. In an important final chapter, Gutzwiller reconstructs much of the poetic structure of Meleager's Garland, an ancient anthology of Hellenistic epigrams.

Greek 'literary' epigrams constitute one of the most versatile and dynamic poetic forms in the Hellenistic period. Originally modeled on the anonymous epitaphs and dedications inscribed on monuments throughout antiquity, these short poems came to include a variety of subtypes and served as a vehicle for Hellenistic poets to experiment with themes and motifs from other genres. This edition introduces students to a wide selection of epigrams from the third and second centuries BCE. It provides substantial help in construing the Greek and will be appropriate for those approaching the genre for the first time, whilst also containing material of interest to scholars. It includes work by the most important epigrammatists of this period, with substantial attention paid to the way these poets engage with the epigraphic and literary traditions. The Introduction provides an overview of the history of the genre and of its formal features, including dialect and meter.

This broad study of the Hellenistic poets of the third century B.C. provides a much-needed picture of the poetry of the period while demonstrating its quality and vitality. Hutchinson explores the works of such writers as Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius of Rhodes--developing a general conception of poetry that centers around the poets' handling of tone, level, and form--and offers a fresh analysis of the influence of Hellenistic poetry on the city of Rome.