Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Iambic Ideas explores the concept of the _iambic_ as a genre. In a set of detailed studies, the contributors examine, across time, the idea of iambic through a wide variety of cultural settings--Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, and late antiquity. What emerges most clearly is that the _iambic idea_ is impossible to define in absolute terms: rather, the form of iambic keeps varying in response to a vast variety of historical contingencies. The variation is evident in such critical terms as the _iambic tendency_ in Sappho, the _reusing of iambi_ for Roman epodes, and even the instances of _iambic absence_ in comedy and other such related forms. In the end, what is most characteristic about the _iambic_ is its own inherent variability.