The Wound and the Kiss: The Morbid Pleasures of Post-Theocritean Aesthetics
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Evina Sistakou
is Professor of Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is the author ofEvina Sistakou The Geography of Callimachus and Hellenistic Avant-Garde Poetry (Athens 2005, in Modern Greek),Reconstructing the Epic. Cross-Readings of the Trojan Myth in Hellenistic Poetry (Leuven 2008),The Aesthetics of Darkness. A Study of Hellenistic Romanticism in Apollonius, Lycophron and Nicander (Leuven 2012) andTragic Failures. Alexandrian Responses to Tragedy and the Tragic (Berlin-Boston 2016).
Abstract
The paper examines the aesthetics of the pseudo-Theocritean idylls and of the later additions to the bucolic corpus, which can be viewed as a ‘sensualized’ version of Theocritus’ poetics. Based on readings of some of the pseudo-Theocritean Idylls (19 Love Stealing Honey, 23 The Lover), the fragments ascribed to Bion and his Epitaph on Adonis, and the anonymous poem To the Dead Adonis, the paper argues that post-Theocritean aesthetics may be defined by reference to two images, ‘the wound’ and ‘the kiss’, where two concepts converge: morbidity and sensuality. This poetic style stands in stark contrast to the sophisticated and balanced ideal of leptotēs and it is un-Callimachean in tone and taste; this aspect of post-Theocritean aesthetics, which tends towards pathos and aestheticism, mainly looks forward to romanticism and decadence.
About the author
Evina Sistakou is Professor of Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is the author of The Geography of Callimachus and Hellenistic Avant-Garde Poetry (Athens 2005, in Modern Greek), Reconstructing the Epic. Cross-Readings of the Trojan Myth in Hellenistic Poetry (Leuven 2008), The Aesthetics of Darkness. A Study of Hellenistic Romanticism in Apollonius, Lycophron and Nicander (Leuven 2012) and Tragic Failures. Alexandrian Responses to Tragedy and the Tragic (Berlin-Boston 2016).
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Thomas Nelson and Max Leventhal for their insightful comments which have substantially improved my paper.
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Articles in the same Issue
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- Implicit and Explicit Words of Wisdom in Aeschylus and in Prometheus Bound: A Laconically Generalizing Titan and a Densely Lavish Poet
- ‘Imprison Cleon, Kill the Dead!’
- Μισούμενα on the Misoumenos: Neglected Tables of Fractions in P.Oxy. XXXIII 2656
- Contest of Poetry in Alexandria: Call. Ia. 1, 13, Herod. Mim. 8, al.
- The Wound and the Kiss: The Morbid Pleasures of Post-Theocritean Aesthetics
- A Strange Epigram and the Date of Hegesander
- Occult(um) Aeaciden: Elisions of gender in Statius’ Achilleid
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Implicit and Explicit Words of Wisdom in Aeschylus and in Prometheus Bound: A Laconically Generalizing Titan and a Densely Lavish Poet
- ‘Imprison Cleon, Kill the Dead!’
- Μισούμενα on the Misoumenos: Neglected Tables of Fractions in P.Oxy. XXXIII 2656
- Contest of Poetry in Alexandria: Call. Ia. 1, 13, Herod. Mim. 8, al.
- The Wound and the Kiss: The Morbid Pleasures of Post-Theocritean Aesthetics
- A Strange Epigram and the Date of Hegesander
- Occult(um) Aeaciden: Elisions of gender in Statius’ Achilleid