Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art

Download or read book Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art written by Graham Zanker and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2008-02-04 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking a fresh look at the poetry and visual art of the Hellenistic age, from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. to the Romans’ defeat of Cleopatra in 30 B.C., Graham Zanker makes enlightening discoveries about the assumptions and conventions of Hellenistic poets and artists and their audiences. Zanker’s exciting new interpretations closely compare poetry and art for the light each sheds on the other. He finds, for example, an exuberant expansion of subject matter in the Hellenistic periods in both literature and art, as styles and iconographic traditions reserved for grander concepts in earlier eras were applied to themes, motifs, and subjects that were emphatically less grand.