Authorship and Greek Song: Authority, Authenticity, and Performance

Download or read book Authorship and Greek Song: Authority, Authenticity, and Performance written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authorship and Greek Song is a collection of papers dealing with various aspects of authorship in the song culture of Ancient Greece. In this cultural context the idea of the poet as author of his poems is complicated by the fact that poetry in archaic Greece circulated as songs performed for a variety of audiences, both local and “global” (Panhellenic). The volume’s chapters discuss questions about the importance of the singers/performers; the nature of the performance occasion; the status of the poet; the authority of the poet/author and/or that of the performer; and the issues of authenticity arising when poems are composed under a given poet’s name. The volume offers discussions of major authors such as Pindar, Sappho, and Theognis.