Stesichorus in Context

The sixth-century BC Greek poet Stesichorus was highly esteemed in antiquity; but by about AD 400 his works had been almost completely lost. Over recent decades, however, the recovery of substantial portions of his poetry has enabled a reassessment of his significance. These essays by leading scholars analyse different aspects of his oeuvre: the relationship between Stesichorus and epic, particularly his response to the Homeric poems; his narrative technique and his handling of erotic themes; and his influence and reception in fifth-century Athens, in Hellenistic scholarship and poetry, in the Renaissance, and in poetry today. The volume as a whole - the first dedicated to this author - amply demonstrates the extraordinary creativity and continuing vitality of the poet from Himera.

1. The state of Stesichorean studies P. J. Finglass and Adrian Kelly; Part I. Stesichorus and Epic: 2. Stesichorus' Homer Adrian Kelly; 3. Stesichorus and the Epic Cycle Chris Carey; 4. Epic, lyric, and lyric epic M. L. West; Part II. Stesichorean Poetics: 5. Stesichorus, master of narrative P. J. Finglass; 6. Stesichorus the romantic Ian Rutherford; Part III. Reception and Influence: 7. Stesichorus at Athens Ewen Bowie; 8. Stesichorus on stage Laura Swift; 9. Sweet Stesichorus: Theocritus 18 and the Helen revisited Richard Hunter; 10. Stesichorus' readers: from Pierre de Ronsard to Anne Carson Gerson Schade.

P. J. Finglass is Professor of Greek at the University of Nottingham, and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He has published editions of Sophocles' Electra and Ajax, of Pindar's Pythian Eleven, and of Stesichorus with Cambridge University Press, as well as many articles on archaic and classical Greek literature. In 2012 he was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize by the Leverhulme Trust. His research for this book was funded by an Early Career Fellowship awarded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Adrian Kelly is Tutorial Fellow in Ancient Greek Language and Literature at Balliol College, Oxford, and Clarendon University Lecturer in Classics at the University of Oxford. He has published A Referential Commentary on Homer Iliad VIII (2007) and Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus (2009). He works mainly on archaic Greek poetry and Athenian tragedy.