| This dissertation, "The Many-Headed Muse: Tradition and Innovation in Fourth-Century B.C. Greek Lyric Poetry," gives an overview of the extant 800 lines of lyric poetry composed between 425 B.C. and the end of the classical period. The overarching question my study addresses concerns the alleged demise of lyric in the last quarter of the fifth century B.C.;In addition to collecting the evidence for lyric composition and practice in the late-classical period, I explore the dynamics between tradition and innovation in the production, performance, and reception of late-classical lyric poetry and examine four issues: the creation of a "death of lyric" fiction in our main sources (Athenaeus and pseudo-Plutarch, following the highly partisan views of Plato and Aristotle on musical history); the persistence of archaic models along with topoi of innovation in dithyrambs, nomes, paeans, and hymns of the fourth century; the change in poets' self-representation and understanding of the lyric genres and performance over the course of the classical period; and the evolution of the image of the lyric poet between archaic and late-classical times as reflected in anecdotes told by Peripatetic writers and Hellenistic poets.;By combining a close reading of the poems with attention to their intellectual and cultural context, I argue that our evidence suggests a tradition of lyric poetry that continually adapts to the new performance contexts and modes of transmission of the late-classical period. My work thus sheds light on a literary and epigraphic corpus that has received little critical attention and bridges a gap in our understanding of Greek literary history between the classical and Hellenistic periods. |
