Talk:Callimachus
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[edit] Coma Berenices
I noticed that the article says that the Coma Berenices is only known through Catullus 66. This is not in fact the case, as a fragment of the Greek text has been discovered on papyrus.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Campbel2 (talk • contribs) .
[edit] NPOV problems
This is neither NPOV nor true:
- Art and learning are his chief characteristics, unrelieved by any real poetic genius; in the words of Ovid (Amores, 1.15)--Quamvis ingenio non valet, arte valet.
A more even-handed evaluation should be substituted. Callimachus is one of the most important Greek poets for his influence on Latin poetry, if nothing else. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
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- A leftover from the savants of the 1911 EB, who were of course their own experts and didn't have anything like an NPOV policy - in fact they considered part of their mission was to impart the opinions they thought readers *should* have. Update would be good, though tricky to do without eviscerating. Stan 00:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
That's definitely true about the EB's sense of mission. Thing is, in 1911 the EB's opinion was a pretty standard one--classical scholars almost unanimously thought Callimachus' poetry was crap then. So, in a sense, the 1911 material *was* NPOV at that point in time. Of course, it's not now--over the last generation or so Callimachus' place in literary history has been greatly reevaluated--Callimachus is now recognized as having deep influence on Roman poets, and many scholars find his poetry enjoyable and good (though certainly some scholars would still agree with the EB). I've taken an initial stab at revision, including adding more bibliography; if anyone thinks the bibliography is too extensive, feel free to pare it down.
Something that I'm a bit confused about at the moment is whether Callimachus was an official "librarian" of the Library of Alexandria. The current Oxford Classical Dictionary doesn't mention it, which I find a bit surprising. I know that he is commonly said to have been a librarian, but I haven't seen a source for this knowledge. A good place to look is Pfeiffer's History of Classical Scholarship but that's not accessible to me at the moment. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:34, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
I did some revision of this entry, correcting the factual error that he was chief librarian, mentioning his feud with his student Apollonius Rhodius, his stylistic preference for the new very-short poetic style vs. the epic, and tried to cut down that disconnected floating-in-the-void sense a little by mentioning his patron and placing him in the Hellenistic period. I'm sure there are other edits that can be made - I would love some better sources re: his influence on Latin poets, but I know much less about Rome. Aophite 15:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
