Stesichorus

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Abstract

According to the Byzantine encyclopedia called the Suda , Stesichorus' works occupied 26 books in the edition crafted by scholars at Alexandria in Egypt, probably during the great age of Hellenistic scholarship in the third or second centuries BC. The magnitude of Stesichorus' poetic achievement has implications for the performance context of his poetry. Greeks had been traveling west in search of economic opportunity for decades before Stesichorus' lifetime; we might have expected that his poem, on the greatest Greek hero performing a mighty deed in the distant west, would have directed the audience's sympathies toward Heracles as the figure most obviously parallel to those adventurous Greeks. The reperformances of Stesichorus' poems will have been crucial in ensuring their survival; without such reperformances, there would have been no incentive to preserve and copy texts of his lengthy poetry.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationA Companion to Greek Lyric
EditorsLaura Swift
Place of PublicationMalden, MA, Oxford, Chichester
PublisherWiley-Blackwell
Chapter16
Pages234-244
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-119-12265-4, 978-1-119-12266-1
ISBN (Print)978-1-119-12262-3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 May 2022

Publication series

NameBlackwell Companions to the Ancient World
PublisherWiley-Blackwell

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