D. Fearn, Bacchylides. Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition

David Fearn, Bacchylides. Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition, Oxford:  Oxford University Press, coll. "Oxford Classical Monographs", 2007, xii-428p.

ISBN 978-0-19-921550-8

Recension par Giambattista D'Alessio (King's College London) dans Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2008.11.14.

Présentation de l'éditeur:

• An original and wide-ranging study, throwing new light on Bacchylides' approach to poetic tradition
• Combines close literary analysis with a study of the political backdrop to Bacchylides' work

Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition combines close literary analysis of Bacchylides' poetry with detailed discussion of the central role poetry played in a variety of differing political contexts throughout Greece in the early fifth century BC. In Bacchylides' praise poetry, David Fearn argues, the poet manipulates a wide range of earlier Greek literature not only to elevate the status of his wealthy patrons, but also to provoke thought about the nature of political power and aristocratic society. New light is also shed on Bacchylides' Dithyrambs , through detailed discussion of the evidence for the kuklios khoros ('circular chorus') and its relation to a variety of different religious festivals, especially within democratic Athens. The links created between literary concerns and cultural contexts reinvigorate these underappreciated poems and reveal their central importance for the self-definition of political communities.

David Fearn, P.S. Allen Junior research Fellow in Classics, Corpus Christi College, Oxford