Composition, Voices, and the Poetological Programme in the Carmina Anacreontea

Abstract

The Carmina Anacreontea (CA) is a collection of ancient Greek poems which recreate the literary inheritance of their model, the archaic Greek poet Anacreon. The poems were written by several anonymous authors from various centuries and were later arranged by an anonymous collector/editor. Although the collection is clearly not the product of one author and one period, it should be regarded and analysed as a coherent literary corpus. In this article it is argued that various (and partly conflicting) voices of different speakers emerge from these poems; that some of them suggest identity between the poetic speaker and Anacreon, whereas others do not; and that, in certain cases, a deliberate ambiguity between identity and non-identity is implied. These voices invite the readers of the collection to actively engage in a productive dialogue and to subsequently continue the writing process which initially had been passed from Anacreon to his follower. The ideal reader of the CA is thus an active reader who engages with his reading to the extent that he is gradually transformed into a poet and/or collector himself.