Where, how and why did the canon of Greek lyric poets emerge as a distinct group, differentiated from other, less important composers? What social and political factors influenced the responses and assessments that drove this differentiation? In answering these questions, Theodora Hadjimichael argues that the canonization accomplished in the Hellenistic period, represented most prominently by Aristophanes of Byzantium’s editions, Aristarchus’ commentaries and epigrams such as Anth. Pal. 9.184, was the culmination of a process that began in late fifth-century comedy (and indeed earlier). For Hadjimichael, the canon is formed to a considerable extent by ‘backward-looking’ impulses (20). The cultural conservatism which apparently motivates Aristophanes to set figures such as Pindar and Simonides against contemporary poets and lament changes in popular taste is succeeded by Plato’s preference for older poets and the Peripatetics’ antiquarianism, both of which establish the parameters for Hellenistic scholarly activity (252–53). Differences between components of this intellectual genealogy are sometimes unhelpfully blurred, however: to say, for instance, that Plato is ‘following the agenda of Aristophanes and comedy more generally’ (279) gives a misleading impression of continuity between two distinct configurations of lyric’s importance and appeal.
The book begins with an overview of lyric production in the Archaic period (23–45) and in Athens (45–57). The second chapter deals with the representation of lyric in comedy. While the general picture is accurate, Aristophanes’ and Eupolis’ exaggeration and distortion of social realities and generational conflicts for comic ends (67–68) warrants further exploration. Plato’s use of the lyric poets, especially Pindar and Simonides, as sources of ‘didactic value’ (130) is examined in chapter 3. Hadjimichael follows previous scholars in emphasizing Plato’s tendency to decontextualize quotations and to put them at the service of his own arguments (117). Stesichorus’ function in the Phaedrus as a ‘role model’ for Socrates usefully exemplifies the complexity of the dialogues which Plato creates with his lyric interlocutors (111–15). The discussion of the Peripatetics in chapter 4 emphasizes continuities between their scholarly projects and those of later generations; Praxiphanes’ textual criticism is representative (154). The sociocultural interests of scholars such as Chamaeleon are well presented (161), but the question of what difference such framing makes to an understanding of the poets under consideration is less fully addressed than it might have been.
In chapter 5, Hadjimichael traces the shift from performance to the use of written texts, and takes a sensibly cautious view of the evidence, stressing that widespread use of books should not be assumed in the fifth century and that lyric performance continued to be important (206). Scepticism about written sources is occasionally pushed too far. That Herodotus does not give the details of Sappho’s treatment of Charaxus at 2.135.6 does not ‘mak[e] it unlikely that he [had] come across the … text of the poems’ (199); in a narrative focused on Rhodope, such details would be beside the point. Hellenistic scholarship is discussed in chapter 6. Although the overview of relevant evidence is useful, the conclusion that these scholars were ‘in terms of focus … passive receivers of Greek literature’ (252) underplays the distinction between choice of subject and interpretative method. We know too little, for instance, of Apollonius Rhodius’ scholarship on Archilochus to say whether or not his work changed the terms on which Archilochus was read, but in the case of Aristarchus at least, it seems likely that his interpretations of Pindar went considerably beyond those of his predecessors in scope and detail. Chapter 7 discusses the ‘paradox’ of Bacchylides, to whom little attention seems to have been paid in the fourth century, but who is indisputably a member of the lyric canon in the Hellenistic period.
The book engages with a wide range of scholarly discussion, and gives careful consideration to the transmission, storage and circulation of texts and poems. Discussions are often speculative or cautiously inconclusive but, given the nature of the evidence, this is inevitable. Unfortunately, the author has not been well served by her editors: unidiomatic or erroneous phrasing is frequent, sometimes to the detriment of sense (for example, in the translation of Pl. Resp. 331a4–5 on page 129). More important is a consideration of method. Theodor Adorno famously located lyric’s power in its capacity to transfigure ‘individual impulses’ through ‘aesthetic specificity’ such that they ‘come to participate in something universal’ (‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’). Attending to the complex relations that poetic form establishes between such ‘specificity’ and larger contexts, whether in Adorno’s terms or others, is vital for an understanding of why some authors were valued and some were not. The methods Hadjimichael deploys leave little room for attention to poetic value and authority as distinctively wrought by poetry’s own workings. For readers considering their own responses to such issues, however, this book provides many useful starting points.
