Tra vecchi e nuovi generi: La poesia di Bacchilide nel suo contesto culturale

The sixth and fifth centuryࢠs b. C. was a fundamental turning point for the Greek culture as it brought about crucial cultural changes: the various literary genres began to clearly define their boundaries, trying to emerge from a fluid and magmatic context. Bacchylidesࢠlyric poetry shows evident contact points with other literary genres both in content and structure. It is characterized by a strong tendency to 'eclecticism', a style that makes it atypical compared to pindaric poetry. The emphasis of this work will be on the poetࢠs reception in the Alexandrian age, with particular attention to the aesthetic and cultural dynamics that favored its entry into the canon of lyric poets, and on its interactions with the contemporary literary genres. The work is divided into four chapters. Chapter I deals with the reception of bacchylidean poetry by the erudites of the hellenistic age. Particular attention is put on the fortune of the Ceo poet in the Greek world in regard to the analysis of the lyrical canon. Chapter II is dedicated to the complexed and versatile relationship between Bacchylides poetry and the epic genre, which at the time had great prestige and resonance with the affirmation of the epic-rhapsodies circles. Chapter III, which analyzes the relationship between the bacchylidean lyric and the emerging literary genres, is divided into two sections, focusing respectively on the contact points with the fable and mythological genre. Finally, chapter IV proposes to treat the relationship between Bacchylidesࢠs poetry and the tragic genre from a different perspective. The purpose of this work is to approach bacchylidean poetry in a selective way, starting from the best preserved poems, to provide an overview of the bacchylidean operas in the panorama of the literary genre of the time.