Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Hittite and Greek perspectives on travelling poets, texts and festivals
- 3 Thamyris the Thracian: the archetypal wandering poet?
- 4 Read on arrival
- 5 Wandering poets, archaic style
- 6 Defining local identities in Greek lyric poetry
- 7 Wandering poetry, ‘travelling’ music: Timotheus' muse and some case-studies of shifting cultural identities
- 8 Epigrammatic contests, poeti vaganti and local history
- 9 World travellers: the associations of Artists of Dionysus
- 10 Aristodama and the Aetolians: an itinerant poetess and her agenda
- 11 Travelling memories in the Hellenistic world
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Hittite and Greek perspectives on travelling poets, texts and festivals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Hittite and Greek perspectives on travelling poets, texts and festivals
- 3 Thamyris the Thracian: the archetypal wandering poet?
- 4 Read on arrival
- 5 Wandering poets, archaic style
- 6 Defining local identities in Greek lyric poetry
- 7 Wandering poetry, ‘travelling’ music: Timotheus' muse and some case-studies of shifting cultural identities
- 8 Epigrammatic contests, poeti vaganti and local history
- 9 World travellers: the associations of Artists of Dionysus
- 10 Aristodama and the Aetolians: an itinerant poetess and her agenda
- 11 Travelling memories in the Hellenistic world
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The Homeric Hymn to Apollo presents a vivid picture of how Greek poets reached audiences beyond their home base, from the self-characterisation of the poet as wandering about visiting cities and festivals (166–76), to the description of the Delian festival where spectators from abroad marvel to hear how accurately the Delian maidens mimic the voices and sounds of all humans in their songs, to the narrative of how Apollo compelled a Cretan crew to land at Delphi and become his attendants, performing his paeans in the characteristic Cretan style (vv. 388–end). We have here three ways in which poets moved around: the lone wandering poet, the international festival that can draw both foreign poets and foreign audiences and the involuntary movement of cult personnel. At least two of these must reflect the milieu of the poet who performed this hymn, the final form of which, combining the Delian and Pythian portions and perhaps attributable to a certain Cynaethus, is to be dated to approximately 620 BC, although it is made up of much material that is older. The first method of transmission conforms to the widely accepted model of seers and magicians transmitting their art as wandering craftsmen from east to west during the Orientalising Period, which was presented by Walter Burkert in his Orientalizing Revolution.
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- Information
- Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek CultureTravel, Locality and Pan-Hellenism, pp. 23 - 45Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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