The Emergence of the Lyric Canon

The Hellenistic period was an era of literary canons, of privileged texts and collections. One of the most stable of these consisted of the nine (rarely ten) lyric poets: this volume examines the genesis of the Lyric Canon, and explores the complexities inherent in the process by which lyric poetry was canonized as well as questions connected with the textual transmission and preservation of lyric poems from the archaic period through to the Hellenistic era. Focusing on a broad range of primary material, it conclusively demonstrates that the canonizing process of the lyric poets was already at work from the fifth century BC and that it is reflected both in the evaluation of lyric by fourth-century thinkers and in the activities of the Hellenistic scholars in the Library of Alexandria.