Table of Contents

Frontmatter List of Abbreviations 0: Introduction: Eyes and 'I's Eyes and 'I's: Deixis, Visuality, Ecphrasis, Referentiality Memorialization, Transmission, Material Culture, Cultural Value 1: Efficacy. Nemean 5 and Herodotus on Aeginetan Victors, Heroes, and Statues I. Static Statues, Departing Poems II. 'Pindar's Splendid Pictures': Craft Analogies and Beyond II.1 Aborted Myth: Lyric Story-Telling and Aesthetic Perception II.2 Narrative, Persuasion, Falsehood III. Encomiastic Conclusions III.1 Catalogues and Materialist Voices III.2 Lyric Architectonics IV. Herodotus on Aeginetan Efficacy: Heroes, Cult Statues, and Pindaric Reception IV.1 Moving Sculptures and Aeginetan Efficacy in Book 5 IV.2 Cult Statues and Heroes at Salamis IV.3 Lampon and Pausanias V. Conclusion 2: Contact. Lyric Referentiality and Material Culture in Nemean 8 I. Young Love: Pindar's Touching Overtures I.1 The Construction of Love I.2 Erotic Contextualizabilitya I.3 Sight, Touch, Desire, Imagination II. Contacting Aiakos II.1 Contextual Connectivity II.2 Votive Reliefs II.3 The First-Person Foregrounded II.4 Architecture for Aiakos II.5 The Aiakeion as a Lyric Model II.6 Pindar and Rituala II.7 Kleos and Subjectivity II.8 Ecphrasis, Deixis, Gesture II.9 The Epiphanic Voice III. Attitudes, Visions, Materialities III.1 Haptics, Gesture, Epic Rhetoric III.2 Past and Future; Monumentality and Memorialization IV. Conclusion Coda. The Alcmaeon Encounter: Pythian 8.56 60 3: Ecphrasis and the Politics of Time in Pythian 1 I. Unity and Coherence II. Lyric and Hymnic Traditions: Framing Lyric Power III. Ecphrasis, Signification, and 'The Irruption of Time into Play' III.1 On Interpreting Portents III.2 Volcanic Noise IV. Time for Prayers V. Tensions VI. Revelation and Authority VII. Noise Revisited VIII. Conclusion: Monstrous Time 4: Language and Vision in the Epinician Poets I. The Decorative Box of Words: Simonides' Danae Fragment I.1 Ecphrastic Framing I.2 Vividness: Language, Imagery, Colour I.3 Aesthetics, Communication, and Response I.4 Conclusion II. Vision and Material Culture in Bacchylides and Pindar Compared II.1 'Look this way with your mind' II.2 The Passion Within: Ecphrasis and the Opacity of Bacchylidean Lyric Narrative II.3 Eyesight in Argos: Vision and Material Culture in Pindar, Nemean 10 5: Conclusion Endmatter Bibliography Index of Passages Cited General Index

About the Author

David Fearn is Reader in Greek Literature at the University of Warwick. His research focuses on the poetics, aesthetics, and the socio-political contextualization and reception of archaic and classical Greek literature, and of lyric poetry in particular, though he is also interested in classical historiography, rhetoric, and ancient aesthetics more broadly. His first book, Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition (OUP, 2007), sought to rehabilitate the reputation of this underappreciated poet. He has also edited a collection of essays entitled Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry. Myth, History, and Identity in the Fifth Century BC (OUP, 2011) discussing the interrelation of poetry and culture on the Greek island of Aegina.

Reviews

The engagement with Pindaric scholarship is thorough, often explained in lengthy footnotes. The readings derive from sound translations, arguments and interpretations, whatever will be thought of particular points. More importantly, these readings are exciting because they push our approach to Pindar beyond the rehash of scholarly quagmires and current trends. In many ways, these studies offer great value, individually and as a whole, that strives toward a new, art-historically informed approach to Pindar in which meaning derives from the poetics. * Lawrence Kowerski, CJ-Online *
the book is rich in insightful and enjoyable analyses, such as the reading of Nemean 8, and some general observations about Pindar's poetic personality which makes Fearn's approach thought-provoking and ground-breaking in Pindaric scholarship... Fearn's book is a valuable study of the complex Pindaric attitude to visual culture. * BMCR *
This interdisciplinary work provides a new understanding of Pindar's difficult texts (Nemean 5, Nemean 8, and Pythian 1 are the examples chosen) and their effect on his audiences, illuminating also the ways in which Pindar was received, for example, by Herodotus. The book is rich in ideas about text and image, ritual and poetry, ekphrasis and the lyric "I," and many other Pindaric topics. But above all, Fearns convincingly demonstrates the continuities between lyric poetry and tragedy, and ritual and visual culture. ... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * Choice *