David Fearn
Biographic Data
| ID | 5626353 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Fearn |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Fearn |
| SIGNATURE | FEARN D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Corpus Christi College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6045-4985 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 66 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Cambridge Companion to Pindar
Pindar was the single most important, canonical and influential lyric poet in the ancient Greek world, and he remains one of the most demanding and rewarding poets whose work has come down to us from antiquity. This volume represents the most comprehensive introduction to the poet and his reception yet published. Eighteen leading contemporary scholars contribute individual chapters that together help to provide a holistic understanding of Pindar'…
Olympic Trees
As the centrepiece of an ode for an Olympic victor, the ancient Greek lyric poet Pindar stages an encounter between the hero Heracles and the trees of the mythological Hyperboreans, which Heracles takes back to Greece to acculturate Olympia, the site of his Games. A close reading of Pindar’s original Greek text negotiates both the form and the experience of Heracles’ arboreal encounter. And it sets Pindaric form in relation to both the history of…
The Allure of Narrative in Greek Lyric Poetry
This chapter concerns itself with Greek lyric’s attention to its own allure, through an exploration of the tension between absorption into the narrativity of lyric’s worlds, on the one hand, and, on the other, attentiveness to lyric’s exposition of the artifice and ornamentation of language, and of the intertextualities that constitute the building blocks of lyric narrative. Building on accounts of lyric, literary allure, and literary narrative i…
Ecphrasis and the Politics of Time in Pythian 1
This chapter offers a new interpretation of the elaborate opening frame of Pindar’s Pythian 1 within the broader encomiastic strategies of this poem. In it the ecphrastic and hymnic qualities of this opening are discussed, and especially its use of the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna. The poem’s treatments of the following are revealed: the interrelation between myth and history; divine and mortal time; the nature and extent of the divide between…
Efficacy
This chapter discusses artistic efficacy and attitudes towards material culture in Pindar, Nemean 5. By framing his own poem with a statement about the communicative efficacy of sculpture, Pindar is asking important questions about the similarities and differences between commemorative art and poetry. This opening is the first in a series of gnomic expressions that anticipate a diversity of audience responses to both commemorative art and poetry …
Language and Vision in the Epinician Poets
This chapter explores the ways in which the other two contemporary epinician poets, Simonides and Bacchylides, use aesthetics and material culture as a way of drawing attention to their own individual and distinctive poetic voices and poetic agendas. Their affinities with and differences from Pindar are explored on the strength of the available evidence. Simonides’ Danae fragment receives detailed coverage, interpreted in visual-cultural terms in…
Conclusion
The conclusion rounds out this study, summing up the importance of the approaches taken in relation to previous more historicizing models of Pindaric scholarship. Particular emphasis is placed on aesthetics and the importance of contextualizability: how Pindar’s poetry consistently draws attention to its own aesthetic status and makes an issue of its relation to contexts, through gesturing towards material culture and visual experience; how the i…
Contact
This chapter offers a new reading of Pindar’s Nemean 8. It investigates the ways in which Pindar frames consciousness about art, cult, and the material world with the language and imagery of desire, vision, and physical contact. Discussion is built around the encounter with the Aeginetan cult hero Aiakos, and the potential for interfaces with contemporary art and ritual through contextual allusion to his Aeginetan shrine. This forms the basis for…
Pindar's Eyes
This book assesses the ways in which Pindar, as well as other epinician poets, investigates the theme of aesthetic, and specifically visual, experience in early classical Greece. Major case studies offer complete readings of Pindar’s Nemean 5, Nemean 8, and Pythian 1. These poems reveal Pindar’s deep interest in the relation between lyric poetry and the material and visual world of commemorative and religious sculpture and other significant visua…
Kleos Versus Stone? Lyric Poetry and Contexts for Memorialization
It is generally thought that the lyric poets were hostile to materialist as opposed to kleos-driven, orally delivered, forms of commemoration. However, an investigation of certain test-cases, as well as a broader view of the relation between lyric poetry and other artistic forms of commemoration, shows that the issue is in need of further clarification and modification. This chapter offers a contextually-nuanced interpretation of the available ev…
Pindar
Pindar was a late Archaic and Classical Greek choral lyric poet from Kynoskephalai in Boiotia.
Bacchylidean myths
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Reading the Victory Ode
The victory ode was a short-lived poetic genre in the fifth century BC, but its impact has been substantial. Pindar, Bacchylides and others are now among the most widely read Greek authors precisely because of their significance for the literary development of poetry between Homer and tragedy and their historical involvement in promoting Greek rulers. Their influence was so great that it ultimately helped to define the European notion of lyric fr…
The Ceians and their choral lyric
Aegina
Introduction: Aegina in Contexts I. CONTEXTS FOR HEROIC MYTH-MAKING: ETHNICITY, INTERSTATE RELATIONS, CULT, AND COMMERCE 1. Asopos and his Multiple Daughters: Traces of Preclassical Epic in the Aeginetan Odes of Pindar 2. Rethinking the Sanctuary of Aphaia 3. 'The Thearion of the Pythian One': The Aeginetan Thearoi in Context 4. Musical Merchandise 'on every vessel': Religion and Trade on Aegina II. POETRY, PERFORMANCE, POLITICS 5. Aeginetan Epin…
Introduction
This collection of essays by notable scholars from a variety of disciplines deals with different aspects of the history and culture of the Greek island of Aegina in the fifth century BC. The island is well known as the home of magnificent architecture and sculpture; as the patron of impressive lyric poetry composed by Pindar and his contemporaries; and, from the pages of Herodotus, as a significant trading power, and military threat to her great …
Aeginetan Epinician Culture
This collection of essays by notable scholars from a variety of disciplines deals with different aspects of the history and culture of the Greek island of Aegina in the fifth century BC. The island is well known as the home of magnificent architecture and sculpture; as the patron of impressive lyric poetry composed by Pindar and his contemporaries; and, from the pages of Herodotus, as a significant trading power, and military threat to her great …
Imperialist Fragmentation and the Discovery of Bacchylides
On Christmas Eve 1896, The Times heralded the discovery of a large papyrus roll containing works by the Greek lyric poet Bacchylides, while lamenting that ‘unfortunately the manuscript has suffered severely at the hands of its native discoverers, and is torn into many fragments’. This chapter discusses this report, along with the alternative and more lavish account of the discovery made by the collector who brought the papyrus back to London: E. …
Conclusion
This chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that classical scholarship has generally sought to evaluate Bacchylides negatively by placing him side by side with Pindar and aestheticizing the poetry and separating it from the contexts in which it was originally commissioned. It is not that value-judgements on the relative merits of the two poets are impossible, unnecessary, or embarrassing. But it is necess…
Homeric Fire, Aiginetan Glory, Panhellenic Reception
This chapter is divided into three sections. The first locates Bacchylides' poem within its Aiginetan context. The second shows how Bacchylides uses imagery and Homeric narrative to support Aiginetan aristocratic heritage. The poem celebrates the continuity of Aiginetan cultic heritage, through the exempla provided by Pytheas on the one hand, and Aias and Akhilleus on the other, and through the celebration of Homeric poetry itself as an Aiginetan…
Bacchylides 15: Troy in Athens
This chapter argues that Bacchylides 15, which narrates part of the embassy of Menelaos and Odysseus to Troy, discusses matters of fundamental concern to the city of Athens through a twin engagement: through performance, with the cult of Athena; textually, with Homer and Solon, both poets regarded as Athenian cultural treasures at the time of Bacchylides' composition. Performative and textual engagements, taken together, opens the way for a more …
Contexts
This chapter considers some other contexts in which Bacchylides' Dithyrambs were originally performed. It begins with Bacchylides 20 and Sparta, a case where performance by a kuklios khoros remains only a possibility. It then moves on to cases where kuklioi khoroi are fully documented, in preparation for a full treatment of Bacchylides 15 in the final chapter.
Bacchylides and the Kuklios Khoros: Performance, Genre, and Reception
This chapter considers the nature of the Alexandrian edition of Bacchylides' Dithyrambs. Section I examines the importance of the kuklios khoros, or ‘circular chorus’, and looks at poetic evidence for the affiliations of the term, διθύραμβος during the period in which Bacchylides was operating. Section II discusses ways in which poetry became embroiled in scholarly, sophistic, and musical controversy about the ritual affiliations of choral cultur…
Tradition and Contextualization
This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the lack of critical attention to Bacchylides, making him among the most neglected of the archaic poets. It then examines Bacchylides fragment 5. It looks at two scholarly approaches that fail to address adequately the fragment in context, before developing a third line of approach. The chapter then discusses poetic tradition and patronage.
The Politics of Fantasy
This chapter explores how Bacchylides' engagement with his subject opens up rival receptions of Alexander, in a poem that precariously balances praise of the future monarch against drunken visions of power and wealth; this risks sounding rather more than paraenetic, even potentially critical of the nature of monarchy. It shows how Bacchylides uses an overarching sympotic framework to explore problems pertaining to boundaries, definitions, illusio…
Bacchylides
This book combines close literary analysis of Bacchylides' poetry with detailed discussion of the central role poetry played in a variety of differing political contexts throughout Greece in the early 5th century BC. In Bacchylides' praise poetry, it is argued, the poet manipulates a wide range of earlier Greek literature not only to elevate the status of his wealthy patrons, but also to provoke thought about the nature of political power and ari…
Mapping Phleious
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Aegina
Introduction: Aegina in Contexts I. CONTEXTS FOR HEROIC MYTH-MAKING: ETHNICITY, INTERSTATE RELATIONS, CULT, AND COMMERCE 1. Asopos and his Multiple Daughters: Traces of Preclassical Epic in the Aeginetan Odes of Pindar 2. Rethinking the Sanctuary of Aphaia 3. 'The Thearion of the Pythian One': The Aeginetan Thearoi in Context 4. Musical Merchandise 'on every vessel': Religion and Trade on Aegina II. POETRY, PERFORMANCE, POLITICS 5. Aeginetan Epin…
Pindar's Eyes
This book assesses the ways in which Pindar, as well as other epinician poets, investigates the theme of aesthetic, and specifically visual, experience in early classical Greece. Major case studies offer complete readings of Pindar’s Nemean 5, Nemean 8, and Pythian 1. These poems reveal Pindar’s deep interest in the relation between lyric poetry and the material and visual world of commemorative and religious sculpture and other significant visua…
Mapping Phleious
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Conclusion
This chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that classical scholarship has generally sought to evaluate Bacchylides negatively by placing him side by side with Pindar and aestheticizing the poetry and separating it from the contexts in which it was originally commissioned. It is not that value-judgements on the relative merits of the two poets are impossible, unnecessary, or embarrassing. But it is necess…
Homeric Fire, Aiginetan Glory, Panhellenic Reception
This chapter is divided into three sections. The first locates Bacchylides' poem within its Aiginetan context. The second shows how Bacchylides uses imagery and Homeric narrative to support Aiginetan aristocratic heritage. The poem celebrates the continuity of Aiginetan cultic heritage, through the exempla provided by Pytheas on the one hand, and Aias and Akhilleus on the other, and through the celebration of Homeric poetry itself as an Aiginetan…
Bacchylides 15: Troy in Athens
This chapter argues that Bacchylides 15, which narrates part of the embassy of Menelaos and Odysseus to Troy, discusses matters of fundamental concern to the city of Athens through a twin engagement: through performance, with the cult of Athena; textually, with Homer and Solon, both poets regarded as Athenian cultural treasures at the time of Bacchylides' composition. Performative and textual engagements, taken together, opens the way for a more …
Contexts
This chapter considers some other contexts in which Bacchylides' Dithyrambs were originally performed. It begins with Bacchylides 20 and Sparta, a case where performance by a kuklios khoros remains only a possibility. It then moves on to cases where kuklioi khoroi are fully documented, in preparation for a full treatment of Bacchylides 15 in the final chapter.
Bacchylides and the Kuklios Khoros: Performance, Genre, and Reception
This chapter considers the nature of the Alexandrian edition of Bacchylides' Dithyrambs. Section I examines the importance of the kuklios khoros, or ‘circular chorus’, and looks at poetic evidence for the affiliations of the term, διθύραμβος during the period in which Bacchylides was operating. Section II discusses ways in which poetry became embroiled in scholarly, sophistic, and musical controversy about the ritual affiliations of choral cultur…
Tradition and Contextualization
This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the lack of critical attention to Bacchylides, making him among the most neglected of the archaic poets. It then examines Bacchylides fragment 5. It looks at two scholarly approaches that fail to address adequately the fragment in context, before developing a third line of approach. The chapter then discusses poetic tradition and patronage.
The Politics of Fantasy
This chapter explores how Bacchylides' engagement with his subject opens up rival receptions of Alexander, in a poem that precariously balances praise of the future monarch against drunken visions of power and wealth; this risks sounding rather more than paraenetic, even potentially critical of the nature of monarchy. It shows how Bacchylides uses an overarching sympotic framework to explore problems pertaining to boundaries, definitions, illusio…
Narrating ambiguity
In Herodotus 5.17–21, Amyntas receives the Persian ambassadors sent to demand submission to Darius, accepts their offer, and gives a banquet to welcome the Persians. The youthful Alexander, outraged at the Persians' treatment of Macedonian women during the after-dinner drinking, assassinates the ambassadors by replacing the endangered women with young men carrying knives, who kill the Persians; Alexander then manages to keep the affair secret, by…
Bacchylides
This book combines close literary analysis of Bacchylides' poetry with detailed discussion of the central role poetry played in a variety of differing political contexts throughout Greece in the early 5th century BC. In Bacchylides' praise poetry, it is argued, the poet manipulates a wide range of earlier Greek literature not only to elevate the status of his wealthy patrons, but also to provoke thought about the nature of political power and ari…
Introduction
This collection of essays by notable scholars from a variety of disciplines deals with different aspects of the history and culture of the Greek island of Aegina in the fifth century BC. The island is well known as the home of magnificent architecture and sculpture; as the patron of impressive lyric poetry composed by Pindar and his contemporaries; and, from the pages of Herodotus, as a significant trading power, and military threat to her great …
Aeginetan Epinician Culture
This collection of essays by notable scholars from a variety of disciplines deals with different aspects of the history and culture of the Greek island of Aegina in the fifth century BC. The island is well known as the home of magnificent architecture and sculpture; as the patron of impressive lyric poetry composed by Pindar and his contemporaries; and, from the pages of Herodotus, as a significant trading power, and military threat to her great …
Imperialist Fragmentation and the Discovery of Bacchylides
On Christmas Eve 1896, The Times heralded the discovery of a large papyrus roll containing works by the Greek lyric poet Bacchylides, while lamenting that ‘unfortunately the manuscript has suffered severely at the hands of its native discoverers, and is torn into many fragments’. This chapter discusses this report, along with the alternative and more lavish account of the discovery made by the collector who brought the papyrus back to London: E. …
The Ceians and their choral lyric
Aegina
Introduction: Aegina in Contexts I. CONTEXTS FOR HEROIC MYTH-MAKING: ETHNICITY, INTERSTATE RELATIONS, CULT, AND COMMERCE 1. Asopos and his Multiple Daughters: Traces of Preclassical Epic in the Aeginetan Odes of Pindar 2. Rethinking the Sanctuary of Aphaia 3. 'The Thearion of the Pythian One': The Aeginetan Thearoi in Context 4. Musical Merchandise 'on every vessel': Religion and Trade on Aegina II. POETRY, PERFORMANCE, POLITICS 5. Aeginetan Epin…
Pindar
Pindar was a late Archaic and Classical Greek choral lyric poet from Kynoskephalai in Boiotia.
Bacchylidean myths
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Reading the Victory Ode
The victory ode was a short-lived poetic genre in the fifth century BC, but its impact has been substantial. Pindar, Bacchylides and others are now among the most widely read Greek authors precisely because of their significance for the literary development of poetry between Homer and tragedy and their historical involvement in promoting Greek rulers. Their influence was so great that it ultimately helped to define the European notion of lyric fr…
Kleos Versus Stone? Lyric Poetry and Contexts for Memorialization
It is generally thought that the lyric poets were hostile to materialist as opposed to kleos-driven, orally delivered, forms of commemoration. However, an investigation of certain test-cases, as well as a broader view of the relation between lyric poetry and other artistic forms of commemoration, shows that the issue is in need of further clarification and modification. This chapter offers a contextually-nuanced interpretation of the available ev…
Ecphrasis and the Politics of Time in Pythian 1
This chapter offers a new interpretation of the elaborate opening frame of Pindar’s Pythian 1 within the broader encomiastic strategies of this poem. In it the ecphrastic and hymnic qualities of this opening are discussed, and especially its use of the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna. The poem’s treatments of the following are revealed: the interrelation between myth and history; divine and mortal time; the nature and extent of the divide between…
Efficacy
This chapter discusses artistic efficacy and attitudes towards material culture in Pindar, Nemean 5. By framing his own poem with a statement about the communicative efficacy of sculpture, Pindar is asking important questions about the similarities and differences between commemorative art and poetry. This opening is the first in a series of gnomic expressions that anticipate a diversity of audience responses to both commemorative art and poetry …
Language and Vision in the Epinician Poets
This chapter explores the ways in which the other two contemporary epinician poets, Simonides and Bacchylides, use aesthetics and material culture as a way of drawing attention to their own individual and distinctive poetic voices and poetic agendas. Their affinities with and differences from Pindar are explored on the strength of the available evidence. Simonides’ Danae fragment receives detailed coverage, interpreted in visual-cultural terms in…
Conclusion
The conclusion rounds out this study, summing up the importance of the approaches taken in relation to previous more historicizing models of Pindaric scholarship. Particular emphasis is placed on aesthetics and the importance of contextualizability: how Pindar’s poetry consistently draws attention to its own aesthetic status and makes an issue of its relation to contexts, through gesturing towards material culture and visual experience; how the i…
Contact
This chapter offers a new reading of Pindar’s Nemean 8. It investigates the ways in which Pindar frames consciousness about art, cult, and the material world with the language and imagery of desire, vision, and physical contact. Discussion is built around the encounter with the Aeginetan cult hero Aiakos, and the potential for interfaces with contemporary art and ritual through contextual allusion to his Aeginetan shrine. This forms the basis for…
Pindar's Eyes
This book assesses the ways in which Pindar, as well as other epinician poets, investigates the theme of aesthetic, and specifically visual, experience in early classical Greece. Major case studies offer complete readings of Pindar’s Nemean 5, Nemean 8, and Pythian 1. These poems reveal Pindar’s deep interest in the relation between lyric poetry and the material and visual world of commemorative and religious sculpture and other significant visua…
Classical Antiquity Studies (26 works) · Art (22 works) · Literature (21 works) · Poetry (18 works) · History (16 works) · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies (14 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Political science (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Computer Science (7 works)