Early Greek Hexameter Poetry
New Surveys in the Classics Series

This is the first book to give an introduction to all genres of early Greek hexameter poetry; not only heroic legend and the origins of the gods, but also wisdom literature, genealogy, oracles, and epigraphy. It introduces both apprentice and expert readers to the extant poems and to the fragments of some lost poems. Some useful tools can be found here which do not exist anywhere else: a list of all known early hexameter inscriptions; a catalogue of evidence for 'cropping and splicing' of poems in ancient editions; an index of the editions of over a hundred fragmentary poets and poems. This book offers the most up-to-date research on literary criticism and literary form, mythology and genre, language and metre, and performance and music.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I. The Poems: 1. The Hesiodic works and days; 2. The Hesiodic theogony; 3. The Hesiodic catalogue of women; 4. The Hesiodic shield; 5. The Homeric hymns; 6. The epic cycle; 7. Oracle collectors (chresmologoi); 8. Epigraphy; Part II. Genre: 9. Large-scale: overarching topics and themes; 10. Medium-scale: sub-themes and major structural features; 11. Small-scale: tropes and stylistic features; Part III. Tradition and Legend: 12. Unrecorded traditions; 13. Hexameter and the formula; 14. Pre history of the epic tradition; Part IV. Performance: 15. Musical instruments; 16. Rhythm; 17. Pitch and melody; 18. Performance context; Part V. Fragments: 19. Introduction to fragments; 20. Examples of fragments; 21. How to approach a fragmentary text; 22. Vestigial fragments; Part VI. Relationship between Poems: 23. Modern scholarship: neoanalysis and other 'systemic' interpretations; 24. Ancient transmission: cropping and splicing; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

Peter Gainsford received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1999, and has since taught at the University of Manchester, and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is the author of several articles on Homeric narrative and linguistics, literary criticism, Dictys of Crete, and comparative mythology.