Book contents
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustration and Tables
- Places of Original Publication
- Preface
- Editions and Abbreviations
- Introduction to Volume 1: Greek Poetry before 400 BC
- 1 Early Greek Elegy, Symposium and Public Festival (1986)
- 2 One That Got Away: Archilochus frr. 188–92 and Horace Odes 1.4 and 5 (1987)
- 3 Miles ludens? The Problem of Martial Exhortation in Early Greek Elegy ()
- 4 Lies, Fiction and Slander in Early Greek Poetry (1993)
- 5 Greek Table-Talk before Plato (1993)
- 6 The Theognidea: a Step towards a Collection of Fragments? (1997)
- 7 Early Greek Iambic Poetry: the Importance of Narrative (2001)
- 8 Ancestors of Historiography in Early Greek Elegiac and Iambic Poetry? ()
- 9 Sympotic Praise (2002)
- 10 Early Expatriates: Displacement and Exile in Archaic Poetry ()
- 11 From Archaic Elegy to Hellenistic Sympotic Epigram? (2007)
- 12 Sex and Politics in Archilochus’ Poetry (2008)
- 13 Wandering Poets, Archaic Style (2009)
- 14 Epigram as Narration (2010)
- 15 Historical Narrative in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Elegy (2010)
- 16 Stobaeus and Early Greek Melic, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry (2010)
- 17 Marathon in Fifth-Century Epigram (2010)
- 18 The Trojan War in Early Greek Melic, Iambic and Elegiac Poetry (2010)
- 19 Performing and Re-performing Helen:Stesichorus’ Palinode (2010)
- 20 Simonides of Eretria (redivivus?) (2010)
- 21 Alcman’s First Partheneion and the Song the Sirens sang (2011)
- 22 An Early Chapter in the History of the Theognidea (2012)
- 23 Stesichorus and Ibycus: Plain Tales from the Western Front (2012)
- 24 Epinicians and ‘Patrons’ (2012)
- 25 Unnatural Selection: Expurgation of Greek Melic, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry (2012)
- 26 Marathon, the 1500 Days after: Culture and Politics (2013)
- 27 The Sympotic Tease (2013)
- 28 Rediscovering Sacadas (2014)
- 29 Stesichorus’ Geryoneis and Greeks in the West (2014)
- 30 Stesichorus at Athens (2015)
- 31 Cultic Contexts for Elegiac Performance? (2016)
- 32 Quo usque tandem? How long were Sympotic Songs? (2016)
- 33 How did Sappho’s Songs get into the Male Sympotic Repertoire? (2016)
- 34 The Performance Contexts of Trochaic Tetrameters Catalectic (2018)
- 35 Alcaeus’ stasiotica: Catullan and Horatian Readings (2019)
- 36 Reconfiguring Archilochus: How have Papyri and Inscriptions changed Perceptions of Archilochus’ Iambic and Elegiac Poetry? (2020)
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index of Greek Terms
- General Index
15 - Historical Narrative in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Elegy (2010)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2021
Book contents
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustration and Tables
- Places of Original Publication
- Preface
- Editions and Abbreviations
- Introduction to Volume 1: Greek Poetry before 400 BC
- 1 Early Greek Elegy, Symposium and Public Festival (1986)
- 2 One That Got Away: Archilochus frr. 188–92 and Horace Odes 1.4 and 5 (1987)
- 3 Miles ludens? The Problem of Martial Exhortation in Early Greek Elegy ()
- 4 Lies, Fiction and Slander in Early Greek Poetry (1993)
- 5 Greek Table-Talk before Plato (1993)
- 6 The Theognidea: a Step towards a Collection of Fragments? (1997)
- 7 Early Greek Iambic Poetry: the Importance of Narrative (2001)
- 8 Ancestors of Historiography in Early Greek Elegiac and Iambic Poetry? ()
- 9 Sympotic Praise (2002)
- 10 Early Expatriates: Displacement and Exile in Archaic Poetry ()
- 11 From Archaic Elegy to Hellenistic Sympotic Epigram? (2007)
- 12 Sex and Politics in Archilochus’ Poetry (2008)
- 13 Wandering Poets, Archaic Style (2009)
- 14 Epigram as Narration (2010)
- 15 Historical Narrative in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Elegy (2010)
- 16 Stobaeus and Early Greek Melic, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry (2010)
- 17 Marathon in Fifth-Century Epigram (2010)
- 18 The Trojan War in Early Greek Melic, Iambic and Elegiac Poetry (2010)
- 19 Performing and Re-performing Helen:Stesichorus’ Palinode (2010)
- 20 Simonides of Eretria (redivivus?) (2010)
- 21 Alcman’s First Partheneion and the Song the Sirens sang (2011)
- 22 An Early Chapter in the History of the Theognidea (2012)
- 23 Stesichorus and Ibycus: Plain Tales from the Western Front (2012)
- 24 Epinicians and ‘Patrons’ (2012)
- 25 Unnatural Selection: Expurgation of Greek Melic, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry (2012)
- 26 Marathon, the 1500 Days after: Culture and Politics (2013)
- 27 The Sympotic Tease (2013)
- 28 Rediscovering Sacadas (2014)
- 29 Stesichorus’ Geryoneis and Greeks in the West (2014)
- 30 Stesichorus at Athens (2015)
- 31 Cultic Contexts for Elegiac Performance? (2016)
- 32 Quo usque tandem? How long were Sympotic Songs? (2016)
- 33 How did Sappho’s Songs get into the Male Sympotic Repertoire? (2016)
- 34 The Performance Contexts of Trochaic Tetrameters Catalectic (2018)
- 35 Alcaeus’ stasiotica: Catullan and Horatian Readings (2019)
- 36 Reconfiguring Archilochus: How have Papyri and Inscriptions changed Perceptions of Archilochus’ Iambic and Elegiac Poetry? (2020)
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index of Greek Terms
- General Index
Summary
This chapter revisits the question of how far Greek narrative elegy of the archaic and early classical periods can be seen as an early stage in the development of Greek historiography, offering very tentative answers to the sorts of questions addressed by other contributors to the volume edited by David Konstan and Kurt Raaflaub in 2010.1 In particular I shall try to establish, so far as is possible, to what extent there seem to have been unwritten rules (to use the terminology of Rossi 1971) that distinguished the subject matter and treatment thought appropriate for elegy from those thought appropriate for hexameter epic, a genre that stood very close to elegy both in metre and in language. In an appendix to the chapter a very brief comparison is made with what we know of the Hesiodic Catalogue of women and of the epics of the so-called ‘cycle’, and with our first post-Homeric hexameter epic to survive complete, the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes.
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- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture , pp. 391 - 415Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021