On Coming After: Studies in Post-Classical Greek Literature and its Reception (Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes, 3)

This book gathers together many of the principal essays of Richard Hunter, whose work has been fundamental in the modern re-evaluation of Greek literature after Alexander and its reception at Rome and elsewhere. At the heart of Hunter’s work lies the high poetry of Ptolemaic Alexandria (Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius of Rhodes) and the narrative literature of later antiquity (‘the ancient novel’), but comedy, mime, didactic poetry and ancient literary criticism all fall within the scope of these studies. Principal recurrent themes are the uses and recreation of the past, the modes of poetic allusion, the moral purposes of literature, the intellectual context for ancient poetry, and the interaction of poetry and criticism. What emerges is not a literature shackled to the past and cowed by an ‘anxiety of influence’, but an energetic and constantly experimental engagement with both past and present. Frontmatter 1 Contents 5 Preface 9 Introduction 11 On Coming After 18 1. Apollo and the Argonauts:Two notes on Ap. Rhod. 2, 669 –719 39 2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica 52 3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica 69 4. Winged Callimachus 96 5. Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil 99 6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius 105 7. Callimachus and Heraclitus 125 8. Writing the God: Form and Meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena 137 9. Written in the Stars: Poetry and Philosophy in the Phainomena of Aratus 163 10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi 199 11. Callimachean Echoes in Catullus 65 216 12. Plautus and Herodas 222 13. Bion and Theocritus: a note on Lament for Adonisv. 55 239 14. Mime and mimesis: Theocritus, Idyll 15 243 15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica 267 16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.) 288 17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25 300 18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme 321 19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus 336 20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica 353 21. Virgil and Theocritus: A Note on the Reception of the Encomium to Ptolemy Philadelphus 388 22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus] 394 23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus 415 24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change 444 25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos 467 26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry 480 27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’) 513 28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9 –12 revisited 533 29. The Reputation of Callimachus 547 30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality 569 Frontmatter 585 Contents 589 31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century 595 32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus 613 33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original 632 34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus 647 35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance 663 36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary 683 37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica? 701 38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius 720 39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry 738 40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton 757 41. Longus and Plato 795 42. Growing up in the ancient novels: a response 810 43. The Aithiopika of Heliodorus: beyond interpretation? 824 44. ‘Philip the Philosopher’ on the Aithiopika of Heliodorus 849 45. Plato’s Symposium and the traditions of ancient fiction 865 46. Isis and the Language of Aesop 887 47. The curious incident ...: polypragmosyne and the ancient novel 904 Backmatter 917 This work gathers together the principal essays of Richard Hunter, whose work has been fundamental in the modern re-evaluation of Greek literature after Alexander and its reception at Rome and elsewhere. At the heart of Hunter's work lies the high poetry of Ptolemaic Alexandria and the narrative literature of later antiquity ('the ancient novel'), but comedy, mime, didactic poetry and ancient literary criticism all fall within the scope of these studies. Principal recurrent themes are the uses and recreation of the past, the modes of poetic allusion, the moral purpose of literature, and the intellectual context for ancient poetry