CAIRNS, Fr.,
Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry.
Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1972. VIII,331p. Cloth wrps. Nice copy. C.'s focus was and is not on the large-scale 'genres of form', such as epic, elegy and lyric, but ons so-called 'genres of content', such as propemtikon, komos and genethliakon. (...). This self-consciously conservative book is unquestionably a useful tool in elucidating a number of the often puzzling conventional features of Greek and Latin poetry. (...) The basis of C.'s approach derives from the taxonomy of and prescriptions for various rhetorical genres in Late Antique handbooks, particularly that by Menander Rhetor. (...). The main problem with C.'s approach is its tendency to overemphasise the rigidity and importance of the genres. (...) As with any revised edition, it is the revisions and promised 'new material' which will be of most interest to those wavering between the new-release and second-hand sections of theri local bookshops (! ND), and it must be confessed that these are disappointing. This is effectively a facsimile edition, with correction of misprints, one page of addenda and four of 'postcript).' (BOB COWAN in The Classical Review (New Series), 2010 on the publication of the revised ed. of the book). From the library of the late Prof. W. Geoffrey Arnott.
€ 42.50
(Antiquarian)