Lesbos' other lyricist: studies in Alcaeus

Thesis

‘Lesbos’ Other Lyricist: Studies in Alcaeus’ argues that Alcaeus is a sophisticated poet. It offers new approaches to and interpretations of his poetry, and provides a re-edition and close reading of Alcaeus frr. 33-57, 59-111.

Part I suggests new approaches to Alcaeus and Greek lyric that emphasise literary interpretation. In contrast to the dominant approaches that treat Alcaeus as a source of historical data or consider his works largely understandable from the context, this study highlights the interpretative benefits of a more varied approach. It therefore goes further than recent works on the literary aspects of Greek lyric by focusing on a single poet and his oeuvre in a thesis-length study, uniting diverse approaches, and asking new questions of old topics. New approaches to the study of epithets, metre, immersion, performance, and history are explored for literary interpretation.

Part II presents a new text, apparatus, and textual and interpretative essays on P.Oxy.1233 and 1234 with their joined fragments (Alcaeus frr. 33-57, 59-111). Focusing on these papyri, which represent a large portion of Alcaeus’ poetic fragments and include a broad range of his poetry, forces confrontation with a mixture of famous and under-studied fragments and enables detailed study of the fragments alongside the methodologies of the first half.

As the first thesis-length study of Alcaeus’ entire corpus for forty years, this project presents a more nuanced view of Alcaeus, provides fresh interpretations of fragments, and suggests new approaches for Alcaeus and Greek lyric more broadly.

Authors: Sir, I-K

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-koeaaad66
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: lyric; Greek lyric; ancient history; papyrology; immersion; lesbian poetry; performance; Lesbos; epithets; Sappho; Alcaeus; metre
• Subjects: Papyrology; Greek literature; Lyric poetry; Ancient Greek; Performance