Title: The well-read muse
Description: "In this study, the author investigates the era in which the written work - the book - superseded the assumption of oral composition and performance. In this and other respects, as this study demonstrates, Hellenistic poets saw themselves as now being part of a new world, remote from the great genres and achievements of the earlier literary tradition. That sense of distance from the past gave authors freedom to experiment. At the same time, it incited them to view their poetic heritage as something deserving intense scholarly study. The author examines one fundamental result of this attitude, the Hellenistic tendency toward learned allusion, and what this meant to a period pursuing a different literary approach."--Jacket.
Subjects: Criticism and interpretation, Hellenistic Greek poetry, History, History and criticism, Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.), Inspiration in literature, Muses (Greek deities) in literature, Knowledge and learning, Callimachus, Greek poetry, history and criticism
People: Callimachus
Time periods: To 1500