Medium and Message in Greek Poetry

When epic language appears in genres like comedy, iambus, and hexameter parodia, the first impression it lends is one of incongruity; epic collides with non-epic, high register with low, past with present. However, to late Archaic and Classical audiences, epic represented more than the corpus of written poetry that survives to us. Using case studies from Hipponax (fr.

Gods deceive mortals and each other throughout Greek literature, even in contexts that are meant to show them in the best light, such as the hymns composed to praise them. In this paper, I examine examples of divine lies in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, and I demonstrate that persuasion and deception illustrate a god’s power and essential nature, which are the focus of each hymn’s sequence of words and deeds (Clay).

Lies and Laughter: A Metaliterary Reading of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes

In this presentation, I argue that the poet of Anacreontea 11 as well as Anacreon himself (as preserved in Fr. 127 F. = 445 P. ap. Him. Or. 48.4 [pp. 197-198 Colonna]), take on a persona resonant with that of an ancient magician in their attitude toward the divine Eros/Erotes. In particular, I build on the work of two scholars. First, Faraone 1999, who shows how archaic love poetry’s unsettlingly violent portrayal of desire can help modern readers understand often disturbing ancient erotic magic.