Abstract

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;This thesis falls into two parts. In Chapters 1 and 2, I set philosophy's characterisation of poetic composition as 'mimesis' in the perspective of its aim to produce a distinct, dialoguic logos in competition with the poetic tradition. With the help of critical writings which I discuss in the Introduction, I argue that this tradition is a practice of repetition. A speaker's individuation of his identity and aims, and hence his potential for affecting his contextual sens comes, on this model, from his variation of language with language, and not, as on the mimetic model, from referring his uses of language to a 'transcendent' set of principles. ;This framework enables Aristotle's mimetic description of poetry to be reviewed in the light of Plato's double use of 'mimesis': as a basis for his critique of poetry, and as an allusion to philosophy as a discourse interested in concepts in a non-representational way, which would break with an important aspect of realism in poetic repetition of the Greek self-image. ;Because they have been conventionally contrasted, in Chapters 3 and 4 I approach Callimachus' poetry by first examining Pindar's Odes. I consider his rich language as partly a response to patronage, and partly a process of conceptualisation, not metaphor. This conceptualisation is a mark of his achievement which exceeds the variation provided for in repetition. ;I present Callimachus' longer poetry as compositions which combine multiple variation with lack of authorial voice. I argue that Callimachus is not attempting to establish a circuit of sens between the present and past on traditional lines, and that this is largely due to contextual factors. His ambition as a public poet is thus reduced, or relaxed, in relation to the traditional tendency to appear authoritatively variant in order to be inscribed as 'traditional'