What was a rhapsode? How can we, given the scant nature of the evidence that survives, hope to examine in any detail the rhapsode's role or position in Greek society? This PhD utilizes a Comparative philological approach to posit a solution to a longstanding problem of Classical philology. Using, as its grounds for comparison, the parallels provided via the performers of the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, my research aims to provide a better understanding of the role and status (both ‘self' and ‘societal') of the rhapsode in the Classical Greek world, by means of the backdrop offered by the performers of the Sanskrit epics. Through close examination of the similarities, which are many and striking, we shall be able to construct a far more detailed picture of the rhapsode than we could through scrutiny of the Greek material alone. But it is not only from similarities that insights can be gleaned – the culturally-specific differences too are important precisely because they illustrate the salience and specialness of what was taking place in Greece. Beginning with questions of societal function and identity, and what the rhapsode, like his Indian counterparts, believed and was believed to be doing, the thesis will then move on to issues of the rhapsode's place and perception in the larger society in which he existed. This will allow for certain features about the rhapsode to be seen more clearly than ever before, and ultimately a more complete picture of the rhapsode to be presented.

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This work is the first full-length study of the dissemination of Greek tragedy in the earliest period of the history of drama. In recent years, especially with the growth of reception studies, scholars have become increasingly interested in studying drama outside its fifth century Athenian performance context. As a result, it has become all the more important to establish both when and how tragedy first became popular across the Greek world. This study aims to provide detailed answers to these questions. In doing so, the thesis challenges the prevailing assumption that tragedy was, in its origins, an exclusively Athenian cultural product, and that its ‘export’ outside Attica only occurred at a later period. Instead, I argue that the dissemination of tragedy took place simultaneously with its development and growth at Athens. We will see, through an examination of both the material and literary evidence, that non-Athenian Greeks were aware of the works of Athenian tragedians from at least the first half of the fifth century. In order to explain how this came about, I suggest that tragic playwrights should be seen in the context of the ancient tradition of wandering poets, and that travel was a usual and even necessary part of a poet’s work. I consider the evidence for the travels of Athenian and non-Athenian poets, as well as actors, and examine their motives for travelling and their activities on the road. In doing so, I attempt to reconstruct, as far as possible, the circuit of festivals and patrons, on which both tragedians and other poetic professionals moved. This study thus aims to both chart the process of tragedy’s dissemination and to situate the genre within the context of the broader ‘song culture’ of the Greek wandering poet.

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This thesis examines the Greek wedding song and its function in literature and culture. The genre, hymenaios or epithalamium, has received little scholarly attention, particularly in English (cf. Muth, WS 1954; Tufte, Los Angeles 1970; Contiades-Tsitsoni, Stuttgart 1990, ZPE 1994; Swift, JHS 2006 & DPhil diss.). Yet an examination of the poetry of marriage, a crucial aspect in the study of the ancient world, contributes to our understanding of gender and social relations, as well as literature. Using elements of genre theory, gender studies, anthropology and cultural history, I argue that the epithalamium was part of a ritual of transition; for both the bride and for the community. The archaic epithalamium enacts this transition in lyric; tragic adaptations of the genre explore the consequences when this tradition is unsuccessfully performed. In contrast, the wedding songs of Attic comedy represent a 'happy ever after' ending for the communities of the protagonists, and portray these unions as a Sacred Marriage of man and goddess. The Helenistic epithalamium takes elements of these literary predecessors, and uses them to articulate a transition in marital relations, and literary politics, in the oeuvre of Theocritus. Philia relations in this era evolve to depict a more prominent mutuality between husband and wife, which also underpins the erotic writings of Plutarch. But more importantly, this author develops epithalamial topoi to present marriage as an 'initiation' for the bridal couple, which brings the thesis full-circle to the concept of transition while laying the foundation for one of the central concepts of Menander Rhetor's prescripts.

It has been long acknowledged that Lucian employs various forms of allusion to the Iliad and Odyssey across his writings. This thesis builds on previous studies — which have produced taxonomic analyses of allusion, (mis)quotation and parody — to explore more fully the intertextual richness and complexity of Lucian’s writing that such approaches can paradoxically conceal. Works such as Charon, Hercules, Alexander and several of the miniature dialogues are examined in depth, especially those which have received less attention previously and those in which Lucian can be most clearly seen engaging with the Homeric text, whether at the level of whole scenes, through quotation of short passages, by the construction of parodies and centos, or in drawing attention to lexical details. This examination reveals how such techniques are used to signal Lucian’s close familiarity with the author who was the ultimate talisman of sophistic paideia. Lucian is revealed as re-reading and re-presenting Homer in clever, mischievous, even ‘postmodern’ ways to produce striking effects which make his work both accessible and amusing to ancient audiences across a range of levels of education, from those who knew the main features of Homeric stories and language to those who were intimately familiar with allegorical interpretations of Homer and Alexandrian scholarly controversies over textual minutiae. This is complemented by analysis of Lucian’s presentation of material from the biographical traditions about Homer as man and poet, a topic which has been less studied but which leads to consideration of the role played by Homer both in Lucian’s reflections on truth and lying and in the examination, by this Greek-speaking Syrian, of cultural relations between Greeks and non-Greeks in the cosmopolitan Mediterranean world of the second century.

The thesis examines the presence of Demeter in Hellenistic poetry, while it also considers the way contemporary Demeter cult informs the poetic image of the goddess. My research focuses on certain poems in which Demeter is in the foreground, that is, Philitas’ Demeter, Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, Theocritus’ Idyll 7, and Philicus’ Hymn to Demeter, supplemented by the epilogue of Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo and Philicus’ Hymn to Demeter. The first part of my study is dedicated to the presentation of the evidence for Demeter’s role in the religious life of places that are directly or indirectly associated with the poems I discuss, that is, Egypt, Cyrene, Cos and Cnidus, in order to establish the cultic and historical framework within which Demeter’s literary figure appears. In the second part I closely examine the poems that feature Demeter and conclude that the goddess and motifs closely linked with her have poetological significance, which supports the view that Demeter functions as a symbol of poetics. Furthermore, I examine the social elements in the narrative of the most extant Hellenistic poem on Demeter, i.e. Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, and propose that these reflect Demeter’s role as a ‘social’ goddess.

This thesis explores the relationship between the genre of Greek poetry called parôidia and parody as a literary mode. I argue that the poetics of parôidia as genre are inextricably linked to the poetics of parody as mode. This argument produces a new methodological approach to the concept of parody, which recognizes its idiosyncratic nature. Since everyone has different ideas about what parody is, there is no absolute definition of parody. Instead, I use approaches drawn from cognitive linguistics and poetics to illuminate the parodic script, a set of terms commonly used to explain parody’s effect but which in themselves do not define parody. This methodology is supported by an appendix that analyses the terminology of parody in Greek (!αρῳδία, !αρῳδή, etc.). I argue that the noun !αρῳδία is only ever found with a generic meaning before the first century BC. The main body of the thesis examines six poems from this genre, parôidia, to demonstrate how this genre influenced Greek ideas about parody. This thesis is the first literary study of all of the major poems belonging to the genre. Furthermore, it is the first study of parody to appreciate fully the importance of this genre for notions of parody. While most studies of parody have centred on Greek Comedy, I show that this genre, which has been almost entirely left out of discussions of parody, is essential for the development of parody as a mode. As the first detailed literary study of the genre parôidia, the central chapters provide new interpretations of the genre’s most important poems. In several of these, I show how the poems engage in different kinds of satire. For instance, Timon uses Sceptic philosophy against the dogmatic sophists, and Archestratus uses tropes drawn from the figure of the comic mageiros. In other chapters, I argue that the humour of the poems derives in part from their manipulation of the audience’s expectations. Thus the Batrachomyomachia leads us to anticipate divine intervention, but uses this expectation to create humorous reveals at the end of the poem. In each chapter, I aim to show specifically how the poem’s parody of epic contributes to its construction of meaning. The conclusion then brings these chapters together to present the bigger picture of Greek conceptions of parody that emerge from these discussions. What links the poetry of a Sceptic philosopher and a shit-stained nobody from Thasos? Are there any similarities between the espousal of fine cuisine in Archestratus and the absurdification of the Batrachomyomachia? I conclude by making three claims: 1) parody’s allusive form must be understood as multifaceted and can be approached through several frameworks; 2) parody is not inherently critical of the text it parodies, but can use the process of parody as a framework for satirizing other figures; 3) although frequently regarded as a “low” or “playful” form, parody incorporates its supposedly inferior literary position into its construction of meaning. Parôidia, I argue, is not only a product of its specific literary and cultural context but also contributes to the shaping of parody in Greek thought.

Robert C. Merton. / Bibliography: leaf [23].