Affiliation:
1. University of Manchester
Abstract
The letter collections of Greco-Roman antiquity dwarf in total size all of
ancient drama or epic combined, but they have received far less attention than
(say) the plays of Euripides or the epics of Homer or Virgil. Although
classicists have long realised the crucial importance of the order and
arrangement of poems into ‘poetry books’ for the reading and
reception both of individual poems and the collection as a whole, the importance
of order and arrangement in collections of letters and the consequences for
their interpretation have long been neglected. This piece explores some of the
most important Greek letter collections, such as the Letters attributed to
Plato, and examines some of the key problems in studying and editing collections
of such ancient letters.
Publisher
Manchester University Press
Subject
Library and Information Sciences,General Arts and Humanities