Callimachus of Cyrene and the wonders of the world: the invention of paradoxography for a Hellenistic audience
This thesis explores Callimachus’ role within the discipline of paradoxography to reach further insights into Callimachus’ compositional process for both his poetic and prose writings as well as to identify potential models that contributed to his conception of the genre. Our main source for Callima...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2022
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| _version_ | 1826311870747770880 |
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| author | Kessler, EB |
| author2 | Lightfoot, J |
| author_facet | Lightfoot, J Kessler, EB |
| author_sort | Kessler, EB |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This thesis explores Callimachus’ role within the discipline of paradoxography to reach further insights into Callimachus’ compositional process for both his poetic and prose writings as well as to identify potential models that contributed to his conception of the genre. Our main source for Callimachus’ paradoxography is the 9th-century Codex Heidelbergensis 398, which contains Antigonus’ (of Carystus?) wonder catalogue. This in turn includes forty-three Callimachean wonders. Antigonus functions as an inevitable filter for most of our material. The most common examples of paradoxography are prose lists organised according to loose thematic or geographic criteria. Paradoxography poses fundamental questions about the reliability of second-hand information through its careful selection and manipulation of sources. I will examine the broad range of sources from which Callimachus extracts paradoxographical material and clarify his selection criteria. Especially, the location of wonders played a significant role. Geography was also the main organising principle for his paradoxographical notes. His poetry overlaps with paradoxography often enough in its geographical horizons, literary techniques, and material. The compilation of large amounts of data, the similarity to Aristotle’s <em>Historia Animalium</em>, and the geographical focus on the Western Mediterranean places Callimachus’ paradoxography on a similar footing to the vestiges of contemporary Peripatetic paradoxographical endeavours. Towards the end of my thesis, I examine how paradoxography concretely surfaced in Callimachus’ poetry. Our Hellenistic sources indicate that prose paradoxography was deployed for poetical works, not only in Callimachus, but also in Archelaus, Posidippus, Philostephanus, and Apollonius of Rhodes. The thesis finishes with a case study on the <em>Seven Wonders</em>, a hebdomad also invented by Callimachus. The treatment of Callimachus’ mostly natural wonders in Antigonus and that of the legacy of the famous hebdomad shows that he followed Herodotus’ division of wonders into man-made and natural phenomena. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T08:16:07Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:be6169fd-c15e-4f45-8a68-cbf40ae70e33 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T08:16:07Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:be6169fd-c15e-4f45-8a68-cbf40ae70e332024-01-05T11:20:12ZCallimachus of Cyrene and the wonders of the world: the invention of paradoxography for a Hellenistic audienceThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:be6169fd-c15e-4f45-8a68-cbf40ae70e33Greek HistoriographyGreek poetry, HellenisticEnglishHyrax Deposit2022Kessler, EBLightfoot, JThis thesis explores Callimachus’ role within the discipline of paradoxography to reach further insights into Callimachus’ compositional process for both his poetic and prose writings as well as to identify potential models that contributed to his conception of the genre. Our main source for Callimachus’ paradoxography is the 9th-century Codex Heidelbergensis 398, which contains Antigonus’ (of Carystus?) wonder catalogue. This in turn includes forty-three Callimachean wonders. Antigonus functions as an inevitable filter for most of our material. The most common examples of paradoxography are prose lists organised according to loose thematic or geographic criteria. Paradoxography poses fundamental questions about the reliability of second-hand information through its careful selection and manipulation of sources. I will examine the broad range of sources from which Callimachus extracts paradoxographical material and clarify his selection criteria. Especially, the location of wonders played a significant role. Geography was also the main organising principle for his paradoxographical notes. His poetry overlaps with paradoxography often enough in its geographical horizons, literary techniques, and material. The compilation of large amounts of data, the similarity to Aristotle’s <em>Historia Animalium</em>, and the geographical focus on the Western Mediterranean places Callimachus’ paradoxography on a similar footing to the vestiges of contemporary Peripatetic paradoxographical endeavours. Towards the end of my thesis, I examine how paradoxography concretely surfaced in Callimachus’ poetry. Our Hellenistic sources indicate that prose paradoxography was deployed for poetical works, not only in Callimachus, but also in Archelaus, Posidippus, Philostephanus, and Apollonius of Rhodes. The thesis finishes with a case study on the <em>Seven Wonders</em>, a hebdomad also invented by Callimachus. The treatment of Callimachus’ mostly natural wonders in Antigonus and that of the legacy of the famous hebdomad shows that he followed Herodotus’ division of wonders into man-made and natural phenomena. |
| spellingShingle | Greek Historiography Greek poetry, Hellenistic Kessler, EB Callimachus of Cyrene and the wonders of the world: the invention of paradoxography for a Hellenistic audience |
| title | Callimachus of Cyrene and the wonders of the world: the invention of paradoxography for a Hellenistic audience |
| title_full | Callimachus of Cyrene and the wonders of the world: the invention of paradoxography for a Hellenistic audience |
| title_fullStr | Callimachus of Cyrene and the wonders of the world: the invention of paradoxography for a Hellenistic audience |
| title_full_unstemmed | Callimachus of Cyrene and the wonders of the world: the invention of paradoxography for a Hellenistic audience |
| title_short | Callimachus of Cyrene and the wonders of the world: the invention of paradoxography for a Hellenistic audience |
| title_sort | callimachus of cyrene and the wonders of the world the invention of paradoxography for a hellenistic audience |
| topic | Greek Historiography Greek poetry, Hellenistic |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kesslereb callimachusofcyreneandthewondersoftheworldtheinventionofparadoxographyforahellenisticaudience |