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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Poetry & poets
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Pindar and the Construction of Syracusan Monarchy in the Fifth Century B.C. (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R3,147
Discovery Miles 31 470
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Pindar and the Construction of Syracusan Monarchy in the Fifth Century B.C. (Hardcover)
Series: Greeks Overseas
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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This groundbreaking book attempts a fully contextualized reading of
the poetry written by Pindar for Hieron of Syracuse in the 470s BC.
It argues that the victory odes and other occasional songs composed
by Pindar for the Sicilian tyrant were part of an extensive
cultural program that included athletic competition, coinage,
architecture, sanctuary dedication, city foundation, and much more.
In the tumultuous years following the Persian invasion of Greece in
480, elite Greek leaders and their cities struggled to capitalize
on the Greek victory and to define themselves as free peoples who
triumphed over the threat of Persian monarchy. Pindar's victory
odes are an important contribution to Hieron's goal of panhellenic
pre-eminence, redescribing contemporary tyranny as an instantiation
of golden-age kingship and consonant with best Greek tradition. In
a delicate process of cultural legitimation, the poet's praise
deploys athletic victories as a signs of more general preeminence.
Three initial chapters set the stage by presenting the history and
culture of Syracuse under the Deinomenid tyrants, exploring issues
of performance and patronage, and juxtaposing Hieron to rival Greek
leaders on the mainland. Subsequent chapters examine in turn all
Pindar's preserved poetry for Hieron and members of his court, and
contextualizes this poetry by comparing it to the songs written for
Hieron by Pindar's poetic contemporary, Bacchylides. These odes
develop a specifically "tyrannical " mythology in which a hero from
the past enjoys unusual closeness with the gods, only to bring ruin
on him or herself by failing to manage this closeness
appropriately. Such negative exemplars counterbalance Hieron's good
fortune and present the dangers against which he must (and does)
protect himself by regal virtue. The readings that emerge are
marked by exceptional integration of literary interpretation with
the political/historical context.
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