This special volume of the Hellenistica Groningana, in honour of the
achievements and career of Professor M.A. Harder, revisits the poetry of
Callimachus (theme of two earlier Hellenistic Workshops).
A number of renowned international scholars in the field of Hellenistic
studies reflect on new perspectives in Callimachean scholarship,
inspired among other by Annette Harder's 2012 edition of Callimachus'
Aetia. Their questions aim to contextualize and analyze
Callimachus’ poetry in novel ways, inspired by both new literary theory
and historical insights and a solid body of existing scholarship. How do
Callimachus’ learned elegies relate to the genre of didactic poetry? How
do his aetiological narratives straddle the border between fiction and
reality? What is their basis in Hellenistic scholarship, and in Near
Eastern or Egyptian poetic traditions? How and why do later Greek poets
incorporate Callimachean poetics, and so facilitate his reception in
Latin poetry? What is Callimachus’ attitude to gods and divine rulers in
his hymnic poetry? These and many more questions are addressed, creating
new perspectives in Callimachean scholarship, as the title indicates.