This path-breaking book has made an unusual and original contribution to literary theory by means of a study of the literature of ancient Greece. It investigates an aspect of poetic imagery in the practical context of Greek lyric and drama up to and including Aeschylus and Pindar. Several hundred passages are systematically examined, with many passages from English verse introduced to provide illustration. Using these, Michael Silk formulates a new critical concept, 'interaction', which characterises certain features of metaphor and other imagery and explores in detail their nature and significance. He then proceeds to discuss related issues in the fields of stylistics and literary theory, give fresh insights into several features of ancient literature, and – above all – make important contributions to the theory and practice of 'literary lexicography' in a dead language. This reissue contains a substantial new Introduction engaging with critical and scholarly developments since first publication.

‘An original and exceptional contribution to literary theory'.

Source: Études Classiques

‘Theoretical articulation, textual scrupulosity, historical learning and fineness of poetic perception'.

Source: Classical Philology

‘It will be the unusual reader whose understanding of poetry in general and Aeschylean and Pindaric imagery in particular is not significantly advanced.'

Source: Classical World