Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context

A Hellenistic epigram might occupy only a few lines, yet poets collected these brief compositions into books whose arrangement could give each poem a different resonance. To understand a single epigram, it helps to know what stood beside it.

Kathryn Gutzwiller studies Greek epigrams within their ancient collections, drawing on literary evidence and papyrus discoveries to recover something of how those books were organised. Gender, ethnicity, social position and philosophical outlook could all shape a poet’s voice. Her examination culminates in an attempt to reconstruct the design of Meleager’s Garland, where individual poems formed part of a larger literary composition.