Myth, Locality, and Identity in Pindar's Sicilian Odes
Regular price
€112.99
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
A01=Virginia M. Lewis
Author_Virginia M. Lewis
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DB
Category=DSBB
Category=JBGB
Category=NL-DB
Category=NL-DS
Category=NL-HR
Category=NL-JF
Category=QRS
COP=United States
Discount=15
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Format=BB
Format_Hardback
HMM=242
IMPN=Oxford University Press Inc
ISBN13=9780190910310
Language_English
PA=Available
PD=20191016
POP=New York
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
PUB=Oxford University Press Inc
SMM=26
SN=Greeks Overseas
Subject=Classical Texts
Subject=Literature: History & Criticism
Subject=Religion & Beliefs
Subject=Society & Culture : General
WG=554
WMM=165
Product details
- ISBN 9780190910310
- Format: Hardback
- Weight: 567g
- Dimensions: 236 x 163 x 26mm
- Publication Date: 16 Oct 2019
- Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
- Publication City/Country: New York, US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Myth, Locality, and Identity argues that Pindar engages in a striking, innovative style of mythmaking that represents and shapes Sicilian identities in his epinician odes for Sicilian victors in the fifth century BCE. While Sicily has been thought to be lacking in local traditions for Pindar to celebrate, Lewis argues that the Sicilian odes offer examples of the formation of local traditions: the monster Typho whom Zeus defeated to become king of the gods, for example, now lives beneath Mt. Aitna; Persephone receives the island of Sicily as a gift from Zeus; and the Peloponnesian river Alpheos travels to Syracuse in pursuit of the local spring nymph Arethusa. By weaving regional and Panhellenic myth into the local landscape, as the book shows, Pindar infuses physical places with meaning and thereby contextualizes people, cities, and their rulers within a wider Greek framework. During this time period, Greek Sicily experienced a unique set of political circumstances: the inhabitants were continuously being displaced, cities were founded and resettled, and political leaders rose and fell from power in rapid succession. This book offers the first sustained analysis of myth in Pindar's odes for Sicilian victors across the island that accounts for their shared context. The nodes of myth and place that Pindar fuses in this poetry reinforce and develop a sense of place and community for citizens locally; at the same time, they raise the profile of physical sites and the cities attached to them for larger audiences across the Greek world. In addition to providing new readings of Pindaric odes and offering a model for the formation of Sicilian identities in the first half of the fifth century, the book contributes new insights into current debates on the relationship between myth and place in classical literature.
Virginia Lewis is an Assistant Professor of Classics at Florida State University.
