The Poetics Of Victory In The Greek West

The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West examines the relationship between epinician and the heroizing narratives about athletes, or hero-athlete narratives, that circulated orally in Sicily and Italy in the late archaic and early classical period. Drawing on the colorful stories told about athletes in later sources, the fragments of Simonides, and the surviving odes of Pindar and Bacchylides, it argues that epinician was formed in opposition to orally transmitted narratives and that these two forms-epinician and the hero-athlete narrative-promoted opposed political visions, with epinician promoting the Deinomenid empire and its structures and the hero-athlete narrative opposing Deinomenid rule. Combining an intimate knowledge of the material culture of the Greek West with an innovative use of available source material, The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West exposes the rich intersections between athletics and politics in Sicily and Italy, offering a new and compelling account of Deinomenid self-promotion and of the varied and complex communities that operated under the Deinomenids' control or within their shadow. Further, by establishing models of production and interpretation for the orally transmitted narratives and bringing them into dialogue with epinician, The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West reveals much about epinician as a form, how it developed in the Greek West, what meanings it already carried, and what meanings it accrued as it was appropriated by Hieron the second Deinomenid ruler.

The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West examines the relationship between epinician and the heroizing narratives about athletes, or "hero-athlete narratives," that circulated orally in Sicily and Italy in the late archaic and early classical period. Drawing on the colorful stories told about athletes in later sources, the fragments of Simonides, and the surviving odes of Pindar and Bacchylides, it argues that epinician was formed in opposition to orally transmitted narratives and that these two forms-epinician and the hero-athlete narrative-promoted opposed political visions, with epinician promoting the Deinomenid empire and its structures and the hero-athlete narrative opposing Deinomenid rule. Combining an intimate knowledge of the material culture of the Greek West with an innovative use of available source material, The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West exposes the rich intersections between athletics and politics in Sicily and Italy, offering a new and compelling account of Deinomenid self-promotion and of the varied and complex communities that operated under the Deinomenids' control or within their shadow. Further, by establishing models of production and interpretation for the orally transmitted narratives and bringing them into dialogue with epinician, The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West reveals much about epinician as a form, how it developed in the Greek West, what meanings it already carried, and what meanings it accrued as it was appropriated by Hieron the second Deinomenid ruler.

The polar dichotomy between man and god, and the insurmountable gulf between them, are considered a fundamental principle of archaic and classical Greek religion. Greek Praise Poetry and the Rhetoric of Divinity argues that poetry produced between the eighth and the fifth centuries BC does not present such a uniform view of the world, demonstrating instead that particular genres of poetry may assess the distance between humans and gods differently. Discussion focuses on genres where the boundaries appear to be more flexible, with wedding songs, victory odes, and selected passages from tragedy and comedy taken as case studies that illustrate that some human individuals may, in certain situations, be presented as enjoying a state of happiness, a degree of beauty, or an amount of power comparable to that of the gods. A central question throughout is whether these presentations stem from an individual poet's creative ingenuity or from the conventional ideological repertoire of the respective genre, and how this difference might shape the comparison of a human with the gods. Another important question concerns the ritual contexts in which some of these songs would have been performed, expanding the scope of the analysis beyond merely a literary device to encompass a fundamental aspect of archaic and classical Greek culture.

This book delves into the intricate and, as argued, essential relationship between poetics and religion in Pindar. It explores how performance, cult, and religious attitudes intersect, offering readers a nuanced approach to Pindaric poetry concerning the relationship between mortals and the divine. Marinis approaches the world of Pindaric poetry within its historical context, enabling readers to explore the cultural and religious foundations of Pindar’s lyric verse. The chapters examine both epinician poetry and cultic songs, the two major genres of the Pindaric corpus. This monograph focuses on the interconnectedness of poetics and religion, a central question that is essential for understanding the distinctive nature of Pindaric poetry. It examines the diverse ways in which Pindaric poetic tropes intersect with religious themes through detailed analysis and scholarly research. Readers gain an understanding of the significance of performance and cult in the public enactment of Pindar’s works, exploring the relations between mortals – the composer of the song, its performer, and the victor in the case of epinician poetry – and the divine, highlighting the complexities of ancient Greek literature regarding religious practices and attitudes. Through its rigorous examination of Pindaric poetics and religious themes, this book offers readers a profound insight into the religious dimensions of ancient Greek poetry and the enduring legacy of Pindar’s oeuvre. Poetics and Religion in Pindar is suitable for scholars and students working on ancient Greek literature, particularly the works of Pindar and lyric poetry, as well as those interested in classical literature and ancient Greek religion and culture more broadly.

Whereas the last several decades of scholarship on early Greek lyric have been primarily concerned with the immediate contexts of first performance, this volume turns its attention instead to the rhetoric and realities of poetic permanence, providing the first book-length study devoted to this topic. Taking Pindar and archaic Greek literary culture as its focus, it offers a new reading of Pindar's victory odes which explores not only how they were received by those who first experienced them, but also what they can mean to later audiences like us. Divided into two parts, the discussion first investigates Pindar's relationship to both of these audiences, demonstrating how Pindaric epinicia address the listeners present at their premiere performance and also a broader secondary audience across space and time, with Part One arguing that a full appreciation of these texts involves simultaneously assuming the perspectives of both of these audiences. Following on from this, Part Two describes how Pindar engages with a wide variety of other poetry, particularly earlier lyric, in order to situate his work both within an immanent poetic history and a contemporary poetic culture. In setting out his vision of the literary world, both past and present, the volume ably shows how this framework shaped the meaning of his work and illuminates the context within which he anticipated its permanence, offering new insights into the texts themselves and, more broadly, a re-thinking of the nature of early Greek poetic culture through a combination of historical and literary perspectives.

Demonstrates the theological power of Pindar's victory songs by interpreting them within their contemporary religious landscapes.

What is distinctive about Greek lyric? How should we conceptualize it in relation to literature, song, music, rhetoric, history? This discussion investigates such questions, analysing a range of influential methodologies that have shaped the recent history of the field.

Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in the influence of archaic lyric poetry on Hellenistic poets. However, no study has yet examined the reception of Pindar, the most prominent of the lyric poets, in the poetry of this period. This monograph is the first book to offer a systematic examination of the evidence for the reception of Pindar in the works of Callimachus of Cyrene, Theocritus of Syracuse, Apollonius of Rhodes and Posidippus of Pella. Through a series of case studies, it argues that Pindaric poetry exercised a considerable influence on a variety of Hellenistic genres: epinician elegies and epigrams, hymns, encomia, and epic poetry. For the poets active at the courts of the first three Ptolemies, Pindar's poetry represented praise discourse in its most successful configuration. Imitating aspects of it, they lent their support to the ideological apparatus of Greco-Egyptian kingship, shaped the literary profile of Pindar for future generations of readers, and defined their own role and place in Greek literary history. The discussion offered in this book suggests new insights into aspects of literary tradition, Ptolemaic patronage, and Hellenistic poetics, placing Pindar's work at the very heart of an intricate nexus of political and poetic correspondences.