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Classicising ‘Pindar’: Quotation, Canonisation and Early Reception

  • Henry L. Spelman EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 13, 2021
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Abstract

This essay examines the earliest quotations of Pindar in order to shed light on the social and historical dynamics through which he first emerged as a classic author. Pindaric quotations from the classical period point to his stratified and multi-faceted reception: as a figure within popular memory, as an emblem of elite culture and as an intellectual ancestor. Indeed, a capacity to appeal to different audiences for different but interconnected reasons was integral to his canonisation. The earliest Pindaric quotations already bespeak his culturally privileged status, which was expressed and perpetuated in different ways over the centuries but which was established as a social fact from remarkably early on. A search for the deepest roots of the classicisation of Pindar, it is argued, has to go all the way back to his poetry.

Acknowledgements

This article began as a chapter for a volume which, sadly, will not be published. I am most grateful to Matthew Wright for inviting me to think about quotation culture and for much enlightening digital discussion about that topic. For comments on previous versions of this essay I am also indebted to Peter Agócs, Robert Fowler, Richard Hunter, Adrian Kelly, Tom Nelson, William H. Race, Patricia Rosenmeyer and an audience in Louvain.

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Published Online: 2021-11-13
Published in Print: 2021-11-11

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