Seeing double : intercultural poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria / Susan A. Stephens.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stephens, Susan A.

Series:

Joan Palevsky imprint in classical literature.

Hellenistic culture and society ; 37.

Hellenistic culture and society ; 37

The Joan Palevsky imprint in classical literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Greek poetry, Hellenistic--Egypt--Alexandria--History and criticism.

Egyptian poetry--Egypt--Alexandria--History and criticism.

Comparative literature--Greek and Egyptian.

Comparative literature--Egyptian and Greek.

Language and culture--Egypt--Alexandria.

Poetics--History--To 500.

Alexandria (Egypt)--Intellectual life.

Ptolemaic dynasty, 305-30 B.C.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (317 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

When, in the third century B.C.E., the Ptolemies became rulers in Egypt, they found themselves not only kings of a Greek population but also pharaohs for the Egyptian people. Offering a new and expanded understanding of Alexandrian poetry, Susan Stephens argues that poets such as Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius proved instrumental in bridging the distance between the two distinct and at times diametrically opposed cultures under Ptolemaic rule. Her work successfully positions Alexandrian poetry as part of the dynamic in which Greek and Egyptian worlds were bound to interact socially, politically, and imaginatively.The Alexandrian poets were image-makers for the Ptolemaic court, Seeing Double suggests; their poems were political in the broadest sense, serving neither to support nor to subvert the status quo, but to open up a space in which social and political values could be imaginatively re-created, examined, and critiqued. Seeing Double depicts Alexandrian poetry in its proper context-within the writing of foundation stories and within the imaginative redefinition of Egypt as "Two Lands"-no longer the lands of Upper and Lower Egypt, but of a shared Greek and Egyptian culture.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Conceptualizing Egypt

2. Callimachean Theogonies

3. Theocritean Regencies

4. Apollonian Cosmologies

5. The Two Lands

Select Bibliography

Index of Passages Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-267) and indexes.

ISBN:

9786612356674

9780520927384

0520927389

9781282356672

1282356674

9781597348898

1597348899

OCLC:

1087043318