Leonidas of Tarentum: A wandering poet in the tradition of Greek literature
Item
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Title
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Leonidas of Tarentum: A wandering poet in the tradition of Greek literature
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:d7dc35acb157:11857
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identifier
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12485
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Creator
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Vaillancourt, Alissa Ann,
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Contributor
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Dee L. Clayman
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Classical literature | Classical studies | coordination | everyday | Hellenistic | Leonidas | meager | wandering
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Abstract
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This dissertation examines the poetry of Leonidas of Tarentum, a Greek epigrammatist from the first half of the third century BC. The study concentrates on the theme of wandering and his stylistic technique of to oligon , or meager, everyday subject matter, that is described in high language with elaborate diction and literary allusion, with reference to Homeric texts in particular. The project demonstrates how these themes provide coordination among his epigrams. Since his epigrams are preserved in the Greek Anthology, which is a combination of a number of anthologies from the first century BC through the sixteenth century CE, many scholars have doubted the possibility of a Leonidean, self-authored and autonomous collection. I argue that, through thematic coordination and a system of pairing, the collection proves to have once been an epigram book, comparable to the recently discovered epigram book attributed to Posidippus, also an author of the third century BC. This study reevaluates Leonidas' epigrams as part of their own autonomous collection, a collection that will be shown to have played an important role in the development of the genre of Hellenistic epigram and in the tradition of Greek literature.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Classics
