The Lives of the Greek Poets

Mary R. Lefkowitz has extensively revised and rewritten her classic study to introduce a new generation of students to the lives of the Greek poets. Thoroughly updated with references to the most recent scholarship, this second edition includes new material and fresh analysis of the ancient biographies of Greece's most famous poets.
With little or no independent historical information to draw on, ancient writers searched for biographical data in the poets' own works and in comic poetry about them. Lefkowitz describes how biographical mythology was created and offers a sympathetic account of how individual biographers reconstructed the poets' lives. She argues that the life stories of Greek poets, even though primarily fictional, still merit close consideration, as they provide modern readers with insight into ancient notions about the creative process and the purpose of poetic composition.

Auteur

Mary R. Lefkowitz is Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Emerita, Wellesley College, USA. She is the author of First-Person Fictions (1991), Not Out of Africa (1997), Greek Gods, Human Lives (2003) and Women in Greek Myth (Bloomsbury, 2007),. She is co-editor of Black Athena Revisited (revised edition, 1996) and Women's Life in Greece and Rome (Bloomsbury, 4th edition, 2015).

Contenu

Preface
Introduction
Hesiod
Homer
Eight Archaic Poets
Solon
Simonides
Pindar
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Euripides
Comic Poets
Hellenistic Poets
Conclusion
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Notes
Index