Greek Lyric

The corpus of Greek lyric holds a twofold attraction. It provides glimpses of the song culture of early Greece in which lyric performance had a central place, and it presents us with some captivating and memorable poetry which has been admired since antiquity. This edition gathers poems by seven of the nine canonical lyricists (Alcman, Alcaeus, Sappho, Stesichorus, Ibycus, Anacreon, Simonides), as well as a number of carmina popularia and carmina convivalia and passages from Timotheus' Persians. Both longer and shorter pieces are included. The introduction discusses major issues in the study of Greek lyric including genre, performance and transmission. The commentary is literary in emphasis but also treats questions of syntax, textual reconstruction, metre and dialect. The volume will be of interest to higher-level undergraduates and graduate students as well as to scholars.

• Presents a varied and manageable selection of original texts from the full range of early Greek lyric, including Alcman, Alcaeus, Sappho, Stesichorus, Ibycus, Anacreon, Simonides, and Timotheus
• Includes many of the best known poems, making this the ideal book for those students new to the subject
• Provides a full commentary which discusses literary and grammatical issues as well as providing help with more technical topics like metre, dialect and textual reconstruction