A Companion to Greek Literature

A Companion to Greek Literature presents a comprehensive introduction to the wide range of texts and literary forms produced in the Greek language over the course of a millennium beginning from the 6th century BCE up to the early years of the Byzantine Empire.

• Features contributions from a wide range of established experts and emerging scholars of Greek literature
• Offers comprehensive coverage of the many genres and literary forms produced by the ancient Greeksincluding epic and lyric poetry, oratory, historiography, biography, philosophy, the novel, and technical literature
• Includes readings that address the production and transmission of ancient Greek texts, historic reception, individual authors, and much more
• Explores the subject of ancient Greek literature in innovative ways

Martin Hose is Professor of Greek Literature at Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany and Fellow of the Bavarian Academy. He is the author ofEuripides (2008) and of books on Greek historiography, Aristotle's fragments, and Synesius.

David Schenker is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Missouri. He has published many articles on Aeschylus, Euripides, and Plato.

List of Illustrations x

Notes on Contributors xi

Abbreviations xv

Introduction: A Companion to Greek Literature 1
Martin Hose and David Schenker

Part I Production and Transmission 7

1 Mechanics and Means of Production in Antiquity 9
Lucio Del Corso

2 A Wound, not a World: Textual Survival and Transmission 27
Richard H. Armstrong

Part II Greek Literature as a Dynamic System 41

3 Orality and Literacy: Ancient Greek Literature as Oral Literature 43
Steve Reece

4 Literature in the Archaic Age 58
Timothy Power

5 Literature in the Classical Age of Greece 77
James McGlew

6 Literature in the Hellenistic World 89
Anatole Mori

7 Greek Literature in the Roman World: Introducing Imperial Greek Literature 112
Jason König

8 The Encounter with Christianity 126
Jan Stenger

Part III Genres 139

9 Greek Epic 141
Hanna M. Roisman

10 Lyric: Melic, Iambic, Elegiac 155
James Bradley Wells

11 The Ethics of Greek Drama 175
Richard Rader

12 Epigram and Minor Genres 190
Regina Höschele

13 Oratory: Practice and Theory 205
Mike Edwards

14 Historiography and Biography 217
Antonis Tsakmakis

15 Philosophical Writing: Treatise, Dialogue, Diatribe, Epistle 235
Martin Hose

16 The Novel 256
Stefan Tilg

17 Technical Literature 266
Thorsten Fögen

Part IV The Players 281

18 The Creators of Literature 283
Mary Lefkowitz

19 Users of Literature 296
René Nünlist

20 Sponsors and Enemies of Literature 310
David Schenker

Part V The Places 323

21 Places of Production 325
Martin Hose

22 Places of Presentation 344
Manuel Baumbach

23 Topos and Topoi 353
Suzanne Saïd

Part VI Literature and Knowledge 371

24 Literature and Truth 373
Martin Hose

25 Knowledge of Self 386
Daniela Dueck

26 Explicit Knowledge 401
Markus Asper

27 Implicit Knowledge 415
David Konstan

28 Preserved Knowledge: Summaries and Compilations 427
Markus Dubischar

Part VII Literature and Aesthetics 441

29 The Language of Greek Literature 443
Andreas Willi

30 Poetic Devices in Greek Literature: Pleasure and Creative Appropriation 461
Nicholas Baechle

31 The Function of Literature 476
Victoria Wohl

Part VIII The Reception of Greek Literature 489

32 Trends in Greek Literature in the Contemporary Academy 491
Emily Wilson

33 The Reception of Ancient Greek Literature and Western Identity 511
Edith Hall

Index 534