Greek poetry, lyric, Hellenistic

This is a meticulous survey of the reception of some lyric subgenres
in Hellenistic poetry and it is meant to be the first of a series of contributions
on the subject. Leaving aside lyric in a religious context, the paper is divided
into two main sections, namely lyric poetry composed for rulers and lyric poetry
written for everyday people. In the new social context lyric poetry was intended
for presentation in the royal symposia. The Alexandrians wrote all types of occasional
lyric poetry (enkomia, epinikia, epithalamia, threnoi and epikedeia), a fact
that is reflected both in the work of distinguished poets, such as Callimachus,
Posidippus and Theocritus as well as in the epigrammatic tradition and in poetic
fragments found on papyri. Special attention is given to stichic lyric poetry and
to the new genre of the mime, whereas the oral tradition of the carmina popularia
and the making of lyric anthologies for symposiastic use complete the picture.

The paper is the first part of S. Barbantani’s contribution "Lyric for the Rulers, Lyric for the People: The Transformation of Some Lyric Subgenres in Hellenistic Poetry", in E. Sistakou (ed.), "Hellenistic Lyricism: Traditions and Transformations of a Literary Mode"
(Trends in Classics 9, 2), Berlin - Boston 2017, pp. 339-399 (which discusses encomiastic lyric, epinikion in Callimachus, Posidippus and inscriptional epigram, literary epithalamia, threnoi and epikedeia, poems in stichic lyric meters, Carmina popularia, anthologies for symposiastic use and mimes). This contribution analyses how some of the main lyric
genres developed in archaic and classical Greek poetry underwent transformation in the Hellenistic period, following social, political and cultural changes. The paper specifically explores lyric poetry produced ‘for the gods’ (hymns, esp. paeans, preserved on stone and on papyrus).