The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Volume 1, Greek LiteraturePart 4, The Hellenistic Period and the Empire

This series provides individual textbooks on early Greek poetry, on Greek drama, on philosophy, history and oratory, and on the literature of the Hellenistic period and of the Empire. Each part has its own appendix of authors and works, a list of works cited, and an index. This volume studies the revolutionary movement represented by the more creative of the Hellenistic poets and finally the very rich range of authors surviving from the imperial period, with rhetoric and the novel contributing a distinctive flavour to the culture of the time. Appropriately enough, the volume closes with a survey of books and readers in the ancient world, which draws attention to the bookish nature of Greek literature from the Hellenistic period onwards and points forward to its survival into the Middle Ages.

List of plates; Abbreviations; Editorial note; Part I. Hellenistic Poetry: 1. Introduction; 2. Philetas and others; 3. Callimachus; 4. Theocritus; 5. Apollonius Rhodius; 6. Minor figures; Part II. The Literature of the Empire: 7. The early Empire; 8. Poetry; 9. Philostratus and the second sophistic; 10. Science and superstition; 11. Between philosophy and rhetoric; 12. The Greek novel; 13. The fable; 14. Historical writing of the high empire; Part III. Book and Readers in the Greek world: 15. From the beginnings to Alexandria; 16. The Hellenistic and imperial periods; Appendixes; Index.