Solon and Early Greek Poetry: The Politics of Exhortation (Cambridge Classical Studies)
Cambridge University Press, 8/11/2005
EAN 9780521851787, ISBN10: 0521851785
Hardcover, 366 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 2.4 cm
Language: English
The poetry of archaic Greece gives voice to the history and politics of the culture of that age. This 2005 book explores the types of history that have been, and can be, written from archaic Greek poetry, and the role this poetry had in articulating the social and political realities and ideologies of that period. In doing so, it pays particular attention to the stance of exhortation adopted in early Greek elegy, and to the political poetry of Solon. Part I of this study argues that the singing of elegiac paraenesis in the elite symposium reflects the attempt of symposiasts to assert a heroic identity for themselves within this wider polis community. Part II demonstrates how the elegy of Solon both confirms the existence of this elite practice, and subverts it; Part III looks beyond Solon's appropriations of poetic traditions to argue for another influence on Solon's political poetry, that of tyranny.
Introduction
Part I. The Politics of Exhortation
Introduction
1. Understanding the political in martial exhortation
2. Synthesising content and context
3. Contextualising the city
archaic verse inscriptions and the 'rise' of the polis
Part II. Political Poetics
Solon's Eunomia
Introduction
4. Solon 4 and martial poetry
5. Solon's Odyssey
6. Solon 4 and Hesiod
Part III. Poetry and Political Culture
Introduction
7. Solon and the language of the tyrant
8. Rewriting (some) history
Solon and Peisistratus
Conclusion.