The Poetics of Imitation

Western literature knows the anacreontic poems best in the translations or adaptations of such poets as Ronsard Herrick and Goethe. This collection of poems once assumed to be the work of Anacreon himself was considered unworthy of serious attention after the poems were proved to be late Hellenistic and early Roman imitations by anonymous writers. This book the first full-length treatment of the anacreontic corpus explores the complex poetics of imitation that inspired anacreontic composition for so many centuries in antiquity. It discusses the sophisticated and allusive nature of the texts and the curious relationship between model and imitators. A full translation of the anacreontic collection is included as an appendix and all Greek and Latin is translated.