ABSTRACT

Lyric Texts and Lyric Consciousness presents a model for studying the history of lyric as a genre. Prof Miller draws a distinction between the work of the Greek lyrists and the more condensed, personal poetry that we associate with lyric. He then confronts the theoretical issues and presents a sophisticated, Bakhtinian reading of the development of the lyric form from its origins in archaic Greece to the more individualist style of Augustan Rome. This book will appeal to classicists and, since English translations of passages from the ancient authors are provided, to those who specialise in comparative literature.

chapter 1|8 pages

The Subject of the Text

chapter 3|15 pages

De Generibus Disputandum Est

chapter 4|26 pages

The Garden of Forking Paths

Catullus and the birth of the collection

chapter 5|23 pages

A Poet's Place

Sappho and the melic discourse of archaic Greece

chapter 6|19 pages

Sapphica Puella

The triple-faceted object of Catullan desire

chapter 8|28 pages

Horace, Mercury, and Augustus

chapter 9|9 pages

Conclusion: of Writings and Subjects