The First Poets: Lives of the Ancient Greek PoetsA dazzling literary exploration by acclaimed poet and critic Michael Schmidt, The First Poets brings to life for the general reader the great Greek poets who gave our poetic tradition its first bearings and whose works have had an enduring influence on our literature and our imagination. Starting with the legendary and possibly mythical Orpheus and with Homer, Schmidt conjures a host of our literary forebears. From Hipponax, “the dirty old man of poetry,” to Theocritus, the father of pastoral; from Sappho, who threw herself from a cliff for love, to Hesiod, who claimed a visit from the Muses–the stories in The First Poets masterfully merge fact and conjecture into animated and compelling portraits of these ancestors of our culture. |
Contents
The Legend Poets | |
Homer | |
The Homeric Apocrypha | |
The Iliad and the Odyssey | |
Hesiod | |
Solon of Athens | |
Stesichorus of Himera | |
Ibycus of Rhegion | |
Anacreon of Teos | |
Hipponax of Ephesus | |
Simonides of | |
Bacchylides of | |
Callimachus of Cyrene | |
Archilochus of Paros | |
Alcman of Sardis | |
Mimnermus of Colophon | |
Semonides of Amorgos | |
Alcaeus of Mytilene | |
Sappho of Eressus | |
Theognis of Megara | |
Apollonius of Rhodes | |
Notes | |
Glossary | |
Bibliography | |
Acknowledgments | |
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Common terms and phrases
Achilles Alcaeus Alcman Alexandria Anacreon ancient Anthology Apollo Apollonius Archilochus Athenaeus Athenian Athens audience Bacchylides Book Bowra called Callimachus celebrated century BC choral chorus composed critics culture Cyrene death declares dialect diction Dionysus dithyramb divine elements epic epigrams epinicean ode famous father fragments gods Greece Greek Lyric Heracles Hermes Herodotus heroes Hesiod Hipponax Homer human hymns iambic Ibid Ibycus Idyll Iliad invented island Jason kind king language later legend Lesbos Lesky less lines literary lived lyre metre Mimnermus modern Musaeus Muses narrative Odyssey Onomacritos oral tradition Orpheus papyrus patron Pausanias perhaps Pindar Pisistratus poem poet poet’s poetic poetry political Pythian readers recited Sappho says scholars sense Sicily simile Simonides sing Solon song Sparta Stesichorus Stobaeus story Suda survive Taplin tells Thebes Theocritus Theognis translation Trojan Troy tyrant verse victory voice woman women words writing Zeus