Philodemus and Poetry

Designed to offer a critical survey of trends and developments in recent scholarship on Philodemus of Gadara (c.110-40 BC) and Hellenistic literary theory, the essays in this volume treat the papyrus texts of Philodemus' treatises on poetry and the related subjects of rhetoric and music, establishing links with his Roman contemporaries Lucretius, Catullus, Horace, and Virgil. The volume contains a complete translation of Philodemus' On Poems Book 5. The essays evaluate Philodemus' formalism, which denied the moral utility of poetry as it sought to demonstrate the convergence of the Epicurean and the traditionally poetic. The distinguished contributors are D. Obbink, D. Clay, E. Asmis, D. Sider, M. Wigodsky, R. Janko, J. Porter, D. Blank, D. Armstrong, and S. Oberhelman.