Writing Epigrams: The Art of Composition in Catullus, Callimachus and Martial

Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-2-87031-253-7
Verlag: PEETERS PUB

Buch, Englisch, Band 312, 238 Seiten

Reihe: Collection Latomus

Every poet is deeply influenced by the verse of other poets. This

influence is particularly apparent in the way poets compose their poems,

which all poets learn by carefully reading the poetry of their

predecessors. Though the style that poets eventually adopt may be unique

and formed by their own particular genius, certain features of their

poems will nevertheless reveal, at least in part, those earlier poets

who have been most important to the formation of their art. This work

attempts to trace the progression of style in Greek and Latin epigrams

from early inscription to the poems of Martial, by characterizing

features of composition that are transferable from one language to

another. Such aspects of style include the syntax of sentences that

begin and end the poems, the use of vocatives and address, and the

structure of the poems, that is whether they proceed with or without

formal elements such as antithesis, logical argument, and parallel

phrasing. The results of this analysis place on much stronger footing

such often held but still controversial views, that short elegy played a

large role in the development of Hellenistic epigram; that the poems of

Catullus in elegiacs and hendecasyllables show fundamental differences

in style; and that the poet most important to the development of the way

Martial wrote his poetry was not Lucillius or Nearchus but rather

Catullus. These conclusions help define more clearly the affinities of

style and patterns of influence that were responsible for the form of

the ancient epigram.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike