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  3. Scale, Space and Canon in Ancient Literary Culture
  • Cited by 18
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
February 2020
Print publication year:
2020
Online ISBN:
9781108686945
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108686945
Subjects:
Classical Studies, Classical Philosophy, Classical Literature, Philosophy
Information

Book description

Greek culture matters because its unique pluralistic debate shaped modern discourses. This ground-breaking book explains this feature by retelling the history of ancient literary culture through the lenses of canon, space and scale. It proceeds from the invention of the performative 'author' in the archaic symposium through the 'polis of letters' enabled by Athenian democracy and into the Hellenistic era, where one's space mattered and culture became bifurcated between Athens and Alexandria. This duality was reconfigured into an eclectic variety consumed by Roman patrons and predicated on scale, with about a thousand authors active at any given moment. As patronage dried up in the third century CE, scale collapsed and literary culture was reduced to the teaching of a narrower field of authors, paving the way for the Middle Ages. The result is a new history of ancient culture which is sociological, quantitative, and all-encompassing, cutting through eras and genres.

Awards

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2020, Choice Reviews.

Winner, 2021 PROSE Award - Classics, Association of American Publishers

Reviews

‘… this work opens a new path for future scholarship. This engaging … volume deserves a wide audience among classicists.’

P. E. Ojennus Source: Choice

‘This volume is an amazing achievement, a commanding synthesis, a vast compendium of pages, an argument that demands to be contested. Every Classicist should read it.’

Jaś Elsner Source: Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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