"Callimachus and Cult", in: Brill Companion to Callimachus, eds. B. Acosta-Hughes, L. Lehnus, S. Stephens, Brill Academic Publisher, 2011 (original) (raw)
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This paper aims to illustrate the significance of contemporary religious practices for Callimachus' poetry, by focusing on his Hymn to Apollo and reading it in the context of metrical and prose sacred regulations such as programmata, oracular responses, the Cyrenaean purity regulation, and the inscriptional hymns of Isyllus and Philodamos from Scarpheia. Each of these classes of text resonates in Callimachus' poetry and contributes to its rich tapestry of influences and allusions. Finally, the paper considers the Cyrenaean context of Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo as well as the connection of Callimachus' family to the cult of Apollo in Cyrene, arguing that the personal relationship Callimachus forges with Apollo in this hymn resembles the subscriptions accompanying hymns inscribed in sanctuaries. These texts also record divine approbation of the poets and list and various honors the sanctuaries have bestowed on them.
Callimachus, Cyrene, and the Carneia: Social Solidarity in the Hymn to Apollo
New England Classical Journal, 2022
Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo has been subject to multiple interpretations. Few, however, have recognized the social value of the hymn for the Cyreneans. This article proposes that the hymn's two descriptions of the Carneia festival in Cyrene (the inaugural one at the city's founding and the one in the time of Callimachus) shed light on the poet's intentions for the work. His depictions highlight how the Carneia fostered the social integration of Apollo's community. Callimachus' hymn, therefore, like a festival, encouraged his contemporary Cyreneans to appreciate the social solidarity they experienced during the reign of Magas.
‘Lyric’ Atmosphere in Apollonius Rhodius and Callimachus (With an Analysis of Theocritus 18)
Trends in Classics, 2017
This study examines a representative selection of Hellenistic instances of choroi in the works of the three main poets, Apollonius Rhodius, Theocritus and Callimachus. It does so through the notions of 'choral self-referentiality', 'choral mediation' and the stratagem of 'choral projection'. Although Hellenistic choreia probably does not belong to the performative and multi-media milieu alongside lyric or tragic productions, it brings to the fore the continuity between archaic lyric poetry and Hellenistic poetry. This continuity largely consists in the tragic re-use of the choral element and the choral performance.
A Pindaric feature in the poems of Callimachus
Callimachus expounds his poetic program mainly in the prologue to the Aetia, in Epigr. 27 and 28 P., and in the Hymn to Apollo 105-12. There he makes it clear that in his poetry he aims at stylistic refinement and technical polish (λεπτότης) on the one hand, and at όλιγοστιχία on the other hand. It is understood that this implies the discontinuity of form consisting of a more or less loose series of units of a few lines and the organisation of the material into short sections rather than continuous narrative. With the words σικχαίνω πάντα τά δημόσια (Epigr. 28.4 P.) he announces his intention to avoid subjectmatter which has been treated over and over again by the poets. On the other hand his poems show that he knew the earlier poetry very thoroughly since he constantly alludes to it. He culls a striking feature out of it or applies a well known word, metaphor, or scene to a new context and, by so doing, appeals to the intellectual acuteness of his readers. In the prologue to the Aetia, he says that he wants his poetry (σοφίη) to be measured not quantitatively, by the Persian league (αχοίνφ Περσίδι), but by τέχνη (frag. 1. 17f.). It seems that the term τέχνη includes these various connotations of stylistic refinement, discontinuity in narrative, preference for unusual elements, and allusiveness, which together make up Callimachus' σοφίη.2