The volume makes widely available some important scholarship on the canonical texts of ancient rhetoric and poetics. Whilst there are numerous studies of general trends in classical criticism, this collection offers direct discussions of primary sources, which provide a useful companion to the Russell and Winterbottom anthology, Ancient Literary Criticism. The volume contains a chronology, suggestions for further reading, a new translation of Bernays' 1857 essay on katharsis, and an important introductory chapter addressing the tension in ancient literary criticism between its place in the classical tradition and its role in contemporary endeavours to reconstruct ancient culture.

Contents

1:The value of ancient literary criticism, Andrew Laird
2:Poetic inspiration in early Greece, Penelope Murray
3:Homeric professors in the age of the sophists, N. J. Richardson
4:A theory of imitation in Plato's `Republic', Elizabeth Belfiore
5:Plato and Aristotle on the denial of tragedy, Stephen Halliwell
6:Ethos and dianoia: `character' and `thought' in Aristotle's Poetics, A. M. Dale
7:Aristotle on the effect of tragedy, Jacob Bernays
8:Literary criticism in the exegetical scholia to the Iliad: a sketch, N. J. Richardson
9:Stoic readings of Homer, A. A. Long
10:Epicurean poetics, Elizabeth Asmis
11:Rhetoric and criticism, D. A. Russell
12:Theories of evaluation in the rhetorical works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, D. M. Schenkeveld
13:Longinus: structure and unity, Doreen C. Innes
14:The structure of Plutarch's `De audiendis poetis', D. M. Schenkveld
15:Ars poetica, D. A. Russell
16:Ovid on reading: reading Ovid. reception in Ovid `Tristia' II, Bruce Gibson
17:Reading and response in the `Dialogues', T. J. Luce
18:The Virgil commentary of Servius, Don Fowler
19:Ancient literary genres - a mirage?, Thomas G. Rosenmeyer
20:Criticism ancient and modern, Denis Feeney