Canon of the nine lyric poets

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The nine lyrical poets were a canon of ancient Greek authors who were found worthy of critical study by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria .

History of origin

The canon is first attested in the Anthologia Palatina , a collection of poems and epigrams in ancient Greek. There Antipater of Thessalonica names eight of the nine poets in the following order as founders and perfecters of the poetry:

Later sources name Anakreon (monodic poetry, 6th century BC) as the ninth poet in the canon. Korinna , the most important poet after Sappho , was partially included in this Alexandrian canon. This could be seen as a parallel to another epigram by Antipater of Sidon , in which Sappho is added as the tenth to the actually closed circle of the nine muses.

Analogous to the canon of the nine lyric poets, Antipater of Thessalonike also designed a canon of the nine female poets , which includes Praxilla , Moero, Anyte of Tegea , Sappho, Erinna , Telesilla , Korinna, Nossis and Myrtis .

Context for canonicalization

The writings of these poets are traditionally divided into choral lyric and monodic lyric. However, this separation is being questioned today. This lyrical canon of nine comprised only poets who wrote texts in stanzas (song poetry or Melik ); next to it there was the other poetic genres of Iambos , the elegy , which today also as Greek poetry are called, and also always drawn up within meter large forms of the epic and the drama .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Antipater of Thessalonike, William Roger Paton: Epigram No. 186 . In: William Roger Paton (Ed.): The Greek anthology with an English translation . 2nd Edition. William Heinemann, London / New York 1925, p. 96 f . (English, archive.org ).
  2. a b Hatto Herbert Schmitt, Ernst Vogt: The "Canon" of the lyric poet . In: Hatto Herbert Schmitt, Ernst Vogt (ed.): Small Lexicon of Hellenism . 2nd Edition. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1993, p. 325 ( google.at ).
  3. ^ Antipater of Sidon, William Roger Paton: Epigram No. 66 . In: William Roger Paton (Ed.): The Greek anthology with an English translation . William Heinemann, London / New York 1925, p. 34 f . (English, archive.org ).
  4. ^ Antipater of Thessalonike, William Roger Paton: Epigram No. 26 . S. 16 f . (English, archive.org ).