GREEK EPIGRAM FROM THE HBLLBNISTIG TO THE EARLY BYZANTINE ERA

• Published in: Phoenix Vol. 73; no. 1/2; pp. 201 - 203
• Main Author: Sistakou, Evina
• Format: Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Toronto Phoneix - Canada 01.04.2019
• Subjects: Anthologies; Editing; Eroticism; Genre; Greek literature; Hellenistic; Imagery; Inscriptions; Narrative theme; Poetry; Reading
• ISSN: 0031-8299; 1929-4883

Whereas previous scholarship was primarily oriented towards editing, classifying, and producing scholarly commentaries on epigrams, modern scholars have also turned to theoretical discussions of the genre. [...]alongside reference works about epigrams from the Greek Anthology, inscriptions, and until recently unknown epigrammatic material published from papyri, we are now fortunate to have general introductions and historical overviews of the genre, its features and authors, both in the form of companion volumes (the first edited by Peter Bing and Jon Bruss in 2007 for Brill and the second by Christer Henriksen in 2019 for Wiley/Blackwell) and of conference proceedings. The last chapter by Kristoffel Demoen ("Epigrams on Authors and Books as Text and Paratext," 66-82) discusses the importance of "paratextual" epigrams written on the margins of manuscripts, as well as the so-called "book epigrams," i.e., epigrams on authors and poems. In the last chapter ("Art, Nature, Power," 339-353) Stephen Smith offers an insightful glimpse into a less-discussed subject, the imagery and the topos of the garden in late Greek epigram, illluminating a neglected literary theme through a collection of epigrams in which the emperor figures as an "artist" and the garden as a space of power.