Publications
This site is principally designed to store some of my teaching resources, but below is a list of published or forthcoming publications. For more information about my current and past research, including copies of talk handouts and abstracts, please see my academia.edu profile page.
Articles
“Repeating the Unrepeated: Allusions to Homeric Hapax Legomena in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry”
“Talk and Text: The Pre-Alexandrian Footnote from Homer to Theodectes”, in A. Kelly & H.L. Spelman (eds.) Texts and Intertexts in Archaic and Classical Greece, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) [submitted, forthcoming]
(12) “Tragic Noise and Rhetorical Frigidity in Lycophron’s Alexandra”, Classical Quarterly (with K. Molesworth) [submitted, forthcoming]
(11) “The Poetics of Play in Hellenistic Epigram”, in S. Hayes & P. Martin (eds.) Trifling Matters: Nugatory Poetics and Comic Seriousness [submitted, forthcoming]
(10) “Early Hellenistic Epic” in M. Perale et al. (eds.) Early Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
(9) “Moero of Byzantium” in M. Perale et al. (eds.) Early Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
(8) “Beating the Galatians: Ideologies, Analogies and Allegories in Hellenistic Literature and Art”, in A. Coşkun (ed.) Galatian Victories and Other Studies into the Agency and Identity of the Galatians in the Hellenistic and Early-Roman Periods. Colloquia Antiqua 33. Leuven. [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
(7) “The Coma Stratonices: Royal Hair Encomia and Ptolemaic-Seleucid Rivalry?”, in J.H. Klooster, M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit and G.C. Wakker (eds.) Women and Power in Hellenistic Poetry. Hellenistica Groningana. Leuven (Peeters) [submitted, forthcoming; draft manuscript at academia.edu]
(6) “Metapoetic Manoeuvres Between Callimachus and Apollonius: A Response to Annette Harder”, Aevum Antiquum 17 (2019) 107-127 [to be published in 2020]
(5) “Attalid Aesthetics. The Pergamene ‘Baroque’ Reconsidered”, Journal of Hellenic Studies [submitted, forthcoming]
(4) "Nicander's Hymn to Attalus: Pergamene Panegyric", Cambridge Classical Journal [available since Nov 2019 on FirstView]
(3) “Penelopean Simaetha: A Flawed Paradigm of Femininity in Theocritus’ Second Idyll”, in C. Cusset, P. Belenfant and C.-E. Nardone (eds.) (2020) Féminités hellénistiques: Voix, genre, représentations. Hellenistica Groningana 25. Leuven (Peeters): 387-405. [author manuscript at Humanities Commons; academia.edu; researchgate]
(2) “‘Most Musicall, Most Melancholy’: Avian Aesthetics of Lament in Greek and Roman Elegy”, Dictynna 16 (2019) 1-47.
(1) “The Shadow of Aristophanes: Hellenistic Poetry’s Reception of Comic Poetics”, in M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit and G.C. Wakker (eds.) (2018) Drama and Performance in Hellenistic Poetry. Hellenistica Groningana 23. Leuven (Peeters): 225-271. [author manuscript at Humanities Commons; academia.edu; researchgate]
- In this paper, I investigate the repetition of Homeric hapax legomena in archaic and classical Greek poetry. Scholars frequently assume that fine-grained engagement with Homeric rarities is a distinctive feature of the Hellenistic period, but I reveal the significant precedent for this phenomenon in earlier poetry. Proceeding through comedy, tragedy and lyric, I explore a range of case studies which demonstrate the extremely sophisticated appropriation of Homeric unica in the pre-Hellenistic world. I argue that this evidence requires us to reconsider the extent of allusion in archaic and classical Greece and to rewrite traditional narratives of literary history.
“Talk and Text: The Pre-Alexandrian Footnote from Homer to Theodectes”, in A. Kelly & H.L. Spelman (eds.) Texts and Intertexts in Archaic and Classical Greece, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) [submitted, forthcoming]
- How much continuity was there in the allusive practices of the ancient world? I explore this question here by considering the early Greek precedent for the so-called ‘Alexandrian footnote’, a device often regarded as one of the most learned and bookish in a Roman poet’s allusive arsenal. Ever since Stephen Hinds opened his foundational Allusion and Intertext with this device, it has been considered the preserve of Hellenistic and Roman scholar-poets. In this chapter, however, I argue that we should back-date the phenomenon all the way to the archaic age. By considering a range of illustrative examples from epic, lyric and tragedy, I demonstrate that the ‘Alexandrian footnote’ has a long history before Alexandria.
(12) “Tragic Noise and Rhetorical Frigidity in Lycophron’s Alexandra”, Classical Quarterly (with K. Molesworth) [submitted, forthcoming]
- In this paper, we seek to shed fresh light on the aesthetic and stylistic affiliations of Lycophron’s Alexandra, approaching the poem from two distinct but complementary angles. First, we explore what can be gained by reading Lycophron’s poem against the backdrop of Callimachus’ poetry. We contend that the Alexandra presents a radical and polemical departure from the Alexandrian’s poetic programme, pointedly appropriating key Callimachean images, while also countering Callimachus’ apparent dismissal of the ‘noisy’ tragic genre. Previous scholarship has noted links between the openings of the Aetia and Alexandra, but we contend that this relationship is only one part of a larger aesthetic divide between the two poets: by embracing the raucous acoustics of tragedy, Lycophron’s poem offers a self-conscious and agonistic departure from Callimachus’ aesthetic preferences. Second, we consider another way of conceiving the aesthetics of the poem beyond a Callimachean frame, highlighting how Lycophron pointedly engages with and evokes earlier Aristotelian literary criticism concerning the ‘frigid’ style. We contend that the Alexandra constructs its own independent literary history, centred around the alleged name of its author, ‘Lycophron’. We suggest that this traditional attribution is best understood as a pen name that signposts the poem’s stylistic affiliations, aligning it not so much with the Ptolemaic playwright Lycophron of Chalcis, but rather with a larger rhetorical tradition of stylistic frigidity. Ultimately, through these two approaches we hope to highlight further aspects of the Alexandra’s aesthetic diversity.
(11) “The Poetics of Play in Hellenistic Epigram”, in S. Hayes & P. Martin (eds.) Trifling Matters: Nugatory Poetics and Comic Seriousness [submitted, forthcoming]
- In this paper, I explore how Hellenistic epigrammatists exploited the metaphor of play to validate and explore their status in a number of ways. First, I consider several sympotic epigrams in which the figure of play becomes a symbol of both sympotic activity and poetic composition, embedded in wider self-reflexive moments. Second, I turn to the programmatic position of children in Hellenistic epigram, examining how their youthful playfulness reflects the humble aspirations of the genre. In both of these first two sections, we see how play and childhood authorize epigram in the face of loftier genres such as Callimachean elegy and Homeric epic. To close, however, I turn to a pair of epigrams which unravel such clear generic dichotomies, associating play directly with the grander concerns of epic. Just like their later compiler Cephalas, Hellenistic epigrammatists tested the limits of the playfulness of the literary tradition.
(10) “Early Hellenistic Epic” in M. Perale et al. (eds.) Early Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
- Little survives of Early Hellenistic Epic, so much so that different scholars have come to opposite conclusions about its significance: for Konrad Ziegler, it was once widespread and plentiful; but for Alan Cameron, it was practically non-existent. The truth of the matter almost certainly lies somewhere between these two extremes. But in this contribution, rather than re-tracing this debate, I analyse the fragmentary scraps and testimonia of early Hellenistic epic from a literary perspective. I explore to what extent these poems appear to have foreshadowed the work of Callimachus and other later Hellenistic poets, especially in their engagement with Homeric scholarship and their treatment of myth (with a particular focus on metamorphosis, aetiology and unheroic, erotic narratives). Many features which we consider distinctively Callimachean are in fact, I argue, already well-established in these early epics, highlighting the broader continuities of Hellenistic literary culture. However, given that many of these same features are also visible centuries earlier in the epics of Homer and the Epic Cycle, I conclude by reassessing how distinctive our criteria for describing 'Hellenistic' or 'Callimachean' poetics actually are.
(9) “Moero of Byzantium” in M. Perale et al. (eds.) Early Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
- In this chapter, I study Moero of Byzantium as an important predecessor of later Hellenistic poets. I explore Moero’s engagement with scholarly debate, analyse her detailed generic play, and close by considering her possible direct influence on the work of Callimachus and his peers. Moero appears to have foreshadowed key features of Callimachus’ poetics, not only in her approach to myth and genre, but also in her aesthetics and self-styling. Her poetry was learned, allusive and generically experimental; it revelled in scholarly debate, untraditional myths and aetiological narratives; and it may even have foreshadowed the Aetia prologue with a scene of youthful divine inspiration.
(8) “Beating the Galatians: Ideologies, Analogies and Allegories in Hellenistic Literature and Art”, in A. Coşkun (ed.) Galatian Victories and Other Studies into the Agency and Identity of the Galatians in the Hellenistic and Early-Roman Periods. Colloquia Antiqua 33. Leuven. [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
- Hellenistic literature and art commemorated victories over the Galatians through a variety of analogies and allegories, ranging from the historical Persian Wars to the cosmic Gigantomachy: each individual victory was incorporated into a larger sequence in which order constantly quelled the forces of chaos. This paper explores this analogical phenomenon by setting it within a larger Hellenistic context. The first section analyses the various analogies and allegories employed by the Aetolians, Ptolemies and Attalids, comparing these with their 5th-century Athenian precedent and reassessing the case for a Galatian allegory in the Pergamene Great Altar’s Gigantomachy frieze; the second examines how Callimachus manipulated the common Greek-barbarian antithesis with possible intercultural and metapoetic elements; and the third asks how Seleucid ideology might relate to this larger pattern, focusing on Lucian’s account of Antiochus’ ‘Elephant Victory’ (Zeux. 8–11). Although Lucian’s account probably derives from a prose source and not directly from Simonides of Magnesia’s court epic on the subject, I contend that the Syrian writer is likely indebted to the Seleucids’ own self-presentation in portraying Antiochus as the heir of the Achaemenids through a distinctly orientalising motif: the deployment of an exotic secret weapon. The Greek-barbarian dichotomy so prominent elsewhere thus collapses: the Seleucid king was depicted as the ideal blend of East and West, a worthy successor of Alexander the Great.
(7) “The Coma Stratonices: Royal Hair Encomia and Ptolemaic-Seleucid Rivalry?”, in J.H. Klooster, M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit and G.C. Wakker (eds.) Women and Power in Hellenistic Poetry. Hellenistica Groningana. Leuven (Peeters) [submitted, forthcoming; draft manuscript at academia.edu]
- In this paper, I investigate how Ptolemaic poets' presentation of their queens compares with and relates to the practice of their major rivals, the Seleucids. No poetic celebration of a Seleucid queen survives extant, but an anecdote preserved by Lucian sheds intriguing light on Seleucid poetic practice (Pro Imaginibus 5): queen Stratonice, bald through a long illness, organised a competition in which poets elaborately praised her non-existent locks. I subject this testimonium to a close analysis. First, I consider the details and reliability of Lucian's account, arguing that it reflects key aspects of the queen's character and story as told elsewhere, and is likely drawn from a pre-existing source, perhaps even from the ambit of the Seleucid court itself; then I compare this episode with Alexandrian poets' encomia of Ptolemaic queens, highlighting parallel encomiastic techniques and possible direct connections with the poetry of Callimachus, especially his own poem on queenly hair: the Coma Berenices. Given the nature of the evidence, my arguments must be considered tentative and exploratory, but I suggest that the anecdote offers hints of an inter-dynastic poetic rivalry: royal women and their hair stood at the centre of a literary battleground, in which poets not only celebrated the status of their own queens, but also negotiated the poetry and authority of their rivals.
(6) “Metapoetic Manoeuvres Between Callimachus and Apollonius: A Response to Annette Harder”, Aevum Antiquum 17 (2019) 107-127 [to be published in 2020]
- This article reconsiders a number of the metapoetic oppositions which Harder has identified between Callimachus and Apollonius (in the lead article of this volume of Aevum Antiquum, 'Aspects of the Interaction between Apollonius Rhodius and Callimachus') and subjects them to closer scrutiny. First, I explore two metapoetic motifs (talking birds and programmatic paths), before turning to examine issues of narrative (dis)continuity. In particular, I focus on moments where clear-cut distinctions between the two poets appear to break down.
(5) “Attalid Aesthetics. The Pergamene ‘Baroque’ Reconsidered”, Journal of Hellenic Studies [submitted, forthcoming]
- In this paper, I explore the literary aesthetics of Attalid Pergamon, one of the Ptolemies’ fiercest cultural rivals in the Hellenistic period. Traditionally, scholars have reconstructed Pergamene poetry from the city’s grand and monumental sculptural programme, hypothesising an underlying aesthetic dichotomy between the two kingdoms: Alexandrian ‘refinement’ vs. the Pergamene ‘baroque’. In this paper, I critically reassess this view by exploring surviving scraps of Pergamene poetry: an inscribed encomiastic epigram celebrating the Olympic victory of a certain Attalus (IvP I 10), and an inscribed dedicatory epigram featuring a speaking Satyr (SGO I 06/02/05). By examining these poems’ sophisticated engagements with the literary past and contemporary scholarship, I challenge the idea of a simple opposition between the two kingdoms. In reality, the art and literature of both political centres display a similar capacity to embrace both the refined and the baroque. In conclusion, I ask how this analysis affects our interpretation of the larger aesthetic landscape of the Hellenistic era and suggest that the literature of both capitals belongs to a larger system of elite poetry which stretched far and wide across the Hellenistic world.
(4) "Nicander's Hymn to Attalus: Pergamene Panegyric", Cambridge Classical Journal [available since Nov 2019 on FirstView]
- This paper looks beyond Ptolemaic Alexandria to consider the literary dynamics of another Hellenistic kingdom, Attalid Pergamon. I offer a detailed study of the fragmentary opening of Nicander's Hymn to Attalus (fr. 104 Gow-Scholfield) in three sections. First, I consider its generic status and compare its encomiastic strategies with those of Theocritus' Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Idyll 17). Second, I analyse its learned re-use of the literary past and allusive engagement with scholarly debate. And finally, I explore how Nicander polemically strives against the precedent of the Ptolemaic Callimachus. The fragment offers us a rare glimpse into the post-Callimachean, international and agonistic world of Hellenistic poetics.
(3) “Penelopean Simaetha: A Flawed Paradigm of Femininity in Theocritus’ Second Idyll”, in C. Cusset, P. Belenfant and C.-E. Nardone (eds.) (2020) Féminités hellénistiques: Voix, genre, représentations. Hellenistica Groningana 25. Leuven (Peeters): 387-405. [author manuscript at Humanities Commons; academia.edu; researchgate]
- Scholars have long noted the deeply intertextual features of Simaetha’s monologue in Idyll 2, including its Homeric, Sapphic and tragic resonances. In this contribution, however, I focus on an underexplored connection between Theocritus’ speaker and the Odyssean Penelope. I first highlight the Idyll’s pervasive engagement with heroic epic, dwelling especially on parallels with Callimachus’ Hecale and Homer’s Odyssey, before turning to investigate Simaetha’s attempts to fashion herself on the paradigm of the faithful Penelope. Through a series of verbal and situational parallels, I argue that she articulates an idealised vision of herself as the perfect match for the Odyssean Delphis. But as her narrative goes on to show, both she and her lover ultimately fail to live up to this Homeric model. In reality, she is merely one stop-off on Delphis’ merry rounds of love, more like the Odyssean witch Circe than Odysseus’ loyal and loving wife.
(2) “‘Most Musicall, Most Melancholy’: Avian Aesthetics of Lament in Greek and Roman Elegy”, Dictynna 16 (2019) 1-47.
- In this paper, I explore how Greek and Roman poets alluded to the lamentatory background of elegy through the figures of the swan and the nightingale. After surveying the ancient association of elegy and lament (Section I) and the common metapoetic function of birds from Homer onwards (Section II), I analyse Hellenistic and Roman examples where the nightingale (Section III) and swan (Section IV) emerge as symbols of elegiac poetics. The legends associated with both birds rendered them natural models of lamentation. But besides this thematic association, I consider the ancient terms used to describe their song, especially its shrillness (λιγυρότης/liquiditas) and sweetness (γλυκύτης/dulcedo) (Section V). I demonstrate how these two terms connect birdsong, lament and elegiac poetry in a tightly packed nexus. These birds proved perfect emblems of elegy not only in their constant lamentation, but also in the very sound and nature of their song.
(1) “The Shadow of Aristophanes: Hellenistic Poetry’s Reception of Comic Poetics”, in M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit and G.C. Wakker (eds.) (2018) Drama and Performance in Hellenistic Poetry. Hellenistica Groningana 23. Leuven (Peeters): 225-271. [author manuscript at Humanities Commons; academia.edu; researchgate]
- The significance and influence of Attic drama on Hellenistic poetry has been a topic of little consistent focus in recent scholarship, reflecting the dominant academic emphasis on Hellenistic poetry as a written artefact, allegedly detached from any immediate context of performance. This paper attempts to reverse this trend by setting out the continuing vitality and cultural importance of drama in the Hellenistic world, before exploring the role of Attic Old Comedy as both a precedent and a model for Hellenistic poetry. Much of what is often thought distinctively ‘Hellenistic’ can in fact be shown to have clear old comic precedent: Old Comedy, just like Hellenistic poetry, is heavily intertextual (even to the point of re-appropriating Homeric hapax legomena); engages in frequent generic manipulation; displays a strong interest in literary history; emphasises its own literary and metrical innovations; and displays a self-conscious awareness of the tensions between textuality and performance. Yet more than this, Old Comedy also offered a key paradigm of agonistic self-fashioning and literary-critical terminology which Hellenistic poets could parrot, appropriate and invert. Hellenistic poets’ direct engagement with Old Comedy, therefore, clearly extended well beyond the famous literary agon of Aristophanes’ Frogs.
Reviews
(7) The Odyssey and the Cycle: Review of Burgess (J.), Ready (J.), Tsagalis (C.) (eds.) Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic 3 (Leiden and Boston, 2019). Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2020.03.32 [https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2020/2020.03.32]
(6) Simonides the Poet: Review of Rawles (R.) 'Simonides the Poet: Intertextuality and Reception' (Cambridge and New York, 2018). Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2019.02.46.
(5) Hesiodic Fragments: Review of Tsagalis (C.) (ed.) Poetry in Fragments: Studies on the Hesiodic Corpus and its Afterlife. Berlin and Boston, 2017. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.07.33. [Author Manuscript at Humanities Commons]
(4) A New Hellenistic Poetry Anthology: Notice of Sider (D.) (ed.) Hellenistic Poetry. A Selection. Ann Arbor, 2017. Classical Review 68.1 (2018) 287. [Author Manuscript at Humanities Commons]
(3) Poetry and Art from Alexander to Augustus: Review of Linant de Bellefonds (P.), Prioux (É.), Rouveret (A.) (edd.) D’Alexandre à Auguste. Dynamiques de la création dans les arts visuels et la poésie. Rennes, 2015. Classical Review 67.1 (2017) 246-268. [Author Manuscript at Humanities Commons; Zenodo]
(2) Callimachus’ Hymns: Review of Stephens (S. A.) ‘Callimachus: the Hymns’. Oxford and New York, 2015. Mnemosyne 69.6 (2016) 1070-1073. [Author Manuscript at Humanities Commons; Zenodo]
(1) Seleucid Space and Ideology: Review of Kosmin (P. J.) ‘The Land of the Elephant Kings. Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire’. Cambridge MA and London, 2014. Classical Review 66.1 (2016) 180-182. [Author Manuscript at Humanities Commons; Zenodo]
(6) Simonides the Poet: Review of Rawles (R.) 'Simonides the Poet: Intertextuality and Reception' (Cambridge and New York, 2018). Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2019.02.46.
(5) Hesiodic Fragments: Review of Tsagalis (C.) (ed.) Poetry in Fragments: Studies on the Hesiodic Corpus and its Afterlife. Berlin and Boston, 2017. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.07.33. [Author Manuscript at Humanities Commons]
(4) A New Hellenistic Poetry Anthology: Notice of Sider (D.) (ed.) Hellenistic Poetry. A Selection. Ann Arbor, 2017. Classical Review 68.1 (2018) 287. [Author Manuscript at Humanities Commons]
(3) Poetry and Art from Alexander to Augustus: Review of Linant de Bellefonds (P.), Prioux (É.), Rouveret (A.) (edd.) D’Alexandre à Auguste. Dynamiques de la création dans les arts visuels et la poésie. Rennes, 2015. Classical Review 67.1 (2017) 246-268. [Author Manuscript at Humanities Commons; Zenodo]
(2) Callimachus’ Hymns: Review of Stephens (S. A.) ‘Callimachus: the Hymns’. Oxford and New York, 2015. Mnemosyne 69.6 (2016) 1070-1073. [Author Manuscript at Humanities Commons; Zenodo]
(1) Seleucid Space and Ideology: Review of Kosmin (P. J.) ‘The Land of the Elephant Kings. Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire’. Cambridge MA and London, 2014. Classical Review 66.1 (2016) 180-182. [Author Manuscript at Humanities Commons; Zenodo]
Dictionary/Encyclopedia Entries
(5) “Clôture, fermeture” in C. Urlacher & D. Meyer (eds.) Dictionnaire analytique de l’épigramme antique. [submitted, forthcoming; English original at Humanities Commons; academia.edu]
(4) “Érudition” in C. Urlacher & D. Meyer (eds.) Dictionnaire analytique de l’épigramme antique. [submitted, forthcoming; English original at Humanities Commons; academia.edu]
(3) “Équitation, Char/Horsemanship, Chariot-Riding” in J.-P. Guez et al. (eds.) Dictionnaire des images métapoétiques anciennes. [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
(2) “Pas, traces de pas/Steps, Footsteps” in J.-P. Guez et al. (eds.) Dictionnaire des images métapoétiques anciennes. [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
(1) “Vol, larcin/Stealing, Theft” in J.-P. Guez et al. (eds.) Dictionnaire des images métapoétiques anciennes. [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
(4) “Érudition” in C. Urlacher & D. Meyer (eds.) Dictionnaire analytique de l’épigramme antique. [submitted, forthcoming; English original at Humanities Commons; academia.edu]
(3) “Équitation, Char/Horsemanship, Chariot-Riding” in J.-P. Guez et al. (eds.) Dictionnaire des images métapoétiques anciennes. [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
(2) “Pas, traces de pas/Steps, Footsteps” in J.-P. Guez et al. (eds.) Dictionnaire des images métapoétiques anciennes. [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]
(1) “Vol, larcin/Stealing, Theft” in J.-P. Guez et al. (eds.) Dictionnaire des images métapoétiques anciennes. [submitted, forthcoming; author manuscript at academia.edu]