Aristotle, Eratosthenes and the beginnings of Alexandrian scholarship on the Archaia
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Fausto Montana
Abstract: In his work On the Ancient Comedy, fr. 25 Strecker, Eratosthenes of Cyrene gives a positive appraisal of a metaphorical play on words by the comic poet Cratinus (fr. 54 Kassel / Austin), describing it as εἰς τὸ εἶδος οὐκ ἀρύθμως παίζειν. In this paper, it is argued that this expression, which is in conformity with Aristotelian theorization on metaphor, could also imply an enunciative reminiscence of the judgement given by Aristotle, who held that the irony of the poets of the Archaia was based on αἰσχρολογία, whereas contemporary poets preferred ἐμμελῶς παίζειν (NE 4.14, 1128a 9). Some ancient explications transmitted in the scholia to Aristophanes’ comedies seem to testify to the influence or reception of Eratosthenes’ attitude in this regard.
© De Gruyter 2013
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Coordinated sequences of analogous topics in the Delian and Pythian segments of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo
- Od. 3, 392 and Theoc. 7, 147: a case of interpretatio Homerica
- Typhon and Eumelus’ Titanomachy
- Oracles and etymologies or when Aeschylus goes to extremes
- Divine names in the Derveni papyrus and Mesopotamian hermeneutics
- Victory, Mythology and the Poetics of Intercultural Praise in Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices
- Aristotle, Eratosthenes and the beginnings of Alexandrian scholarship on the Archaia
- Levels of authorial presence in Anonymus Londiniensis (P.Brit. Libr. inv. 137)
- Beyond Impotence Some unexplored Ovidian dynamics in Petronius’s sketch of the Croton episode (Satyrica 126. 1–140. 12)
- List of Contributors
- Statement
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Coordinated sequences of analogous topics in the Delian and Pythian segments of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo
- Od. 3, 392 and Theoc. 7, 147: a case of interpretatio Homerica
- Typhon and Eumelus’ Titanomachy
- Oracles and etymologies or when Aeschylus goes to extremes
- Divine names in the Derveni papyrus and Mesopotamian hermeneutics
- Victory, Mythology and the Poetics of Intercultural Praise in Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices
- Aristotle, Eratosthenes and the beginnings of Alexandrian scholarship on the Archaia
- Levels of authorial presence in Anonymus Londiniensis (P.Brit. Libr. inv. 137)
- Beyond Impotence Some unexplored Ovidian dynamics in Petronius’s sketch of the Croton episode (Satyrica 126. 1–140. 12)
- List of Contributors
- Statement
