David Fearn

University of Warwick, Classics and Ancient History, Faculty Member

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David works on the poetics, aesthetics, and socio-political contextualizability of archaic and classical Greek literature, and of lyric poetry in particular. His first book, Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition, sought to rehabilitate the reputation of this underappreciated poet by situating his work in the ethnic, political, and cultural milieu of early classical Greece; he has also edited a collection of essays discussing the interrelation between poetry and culture on the Greek island of Aegina in the 5th century BC: Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry. Myth, History, and Identity in the Fifth Century BC.

David's latest book, Pindar's Eyes: Visual and Material Culture in Epinician Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2017), seeks to reorient debate about art and text, and the relation between lyric form and lyric contextualization, within Pindaric poetics. Other articles investigating the world-creating powers of Greek lyric poetry will also appear soon (on Alcaeus; and Anacreon and Stesichorus). A new project is beginning to take shape, investigating the relation between rhetorical and lyric form and content in Gorgias' Encomium of Helen, along with related theoretical questions concerning (a)temporality and untimeliness, rhetorical situatedness, voice, literary exemplarity, and the limits of prose.

Other areas of interest include classical Greek historiography (see 'Classical Texting' blogpost here); broader trends in the development of the relation between ancient Greek poetry and thought within ongoing debates about the nature and conceptualization of classical reception and the classical; and the cultural history of modern papyrological discoveries of Greek literature. He also has an interest in the history, theory, and practice of photography, which is slowly finding its way into his published work.

While copyright restrictions prevent me from uploading full versions of much of my work, abstracts are included where available, and links are provided to JSTOR and to publishers' websites, some with online content.
Address: Department of Classics and Ancient History
University of Warwick
Library Road
Coventry
CV4 7AL

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Books by David Fearn

Greek Lyric of the Archaic and Classical Periods (Brill RPCP, 2020): first two sections

Greek Lyric of the Archaic and Classical Periods: From the Past to the Future of the Lyric Subject, 2020

Greek lyric, poetry, Sappho, Pindar, historicism, affect, form, subjectivity, Greek literature, l... more

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Greek Lyric of the Archaic and Classical Periods: From The Past to the Future of the Lyric Subject. Brill Research Perspectives in Classical Poetry (RPCP) 1.1 (Brill, 2020)

Research Perspectives in Classical Poetry, 2020

What is distinctive about Greek lyric poetry? How should we conceptualize it in relation to broa... more What is distinctive about Greek lyric poetry? How should we conceptualize it in relation to broader categories such as literature / song / music / rhetoric / history? What critical tools might we use to analyse it? How do we, should we, can we relate to its intensities of expression, its modes of address, its uses of myth and imagery, its attitudes to materiality, its sense of its own time, and its contextualizations? These are the questions that this discussion seeks to investigate, exploring and analysing a range of influential methodologies that have shaped the recent history of the field.

Pindar's Eyes: Visual and Material Culture in Epinician Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2017)

Pindar's Eyes is a ground-breaking interdisciplinary exploration of the interactions between Gree... more Pindar's Eyes is a ground-breaking interdisciplinary exploration of the interactions between Greek lyric poetry and visual and material culture in the early fifth century BCE. Its aim is to open up analysis of lyric to the wider theme of aesthetic experience in early classical Greece, with particular focus on the poetic mechanisms through which Pindar's victory odes use visual and material culture to engage their audiences. Complete readings of Nemean 5, Nemean 8, and Pythian 1 reveal the poet's deep interest in the relations between lyric poetry and commemorative and religious sculpture, as well as other significant visual phenomena, while literary studies of his evocation of cultural attitudes through elaborate use of the lyric first person are combined with art-historical treatments of ecphrasis, of image and text, and of art's framing of ritual experience in ancient Greece. This specific aesthetic approach is expanded through fresh treatments of Simonides' and Bacchylides' own engagements with material culture, as well as an account of Pindaric themes in the Aeginetan logoi of Herodotus' Histories. These come together to offer not just a novel perspective on the relationship between art and text in Pindaric poetry, but to give rise to new claims about the nature of classical Greek visuality and ritual subjectivity, and to foster a richer understanding of the ways in which classical poetry and art shaped the lives and experiences of their consumers.

(ed.) Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry. Myth, History, and Identity in the Fifth Century BC (Oxford University Press, 2010)

Abstract: Situated in the centre of the Saronic Gulf, the island of Aegina has long been recogniz... more Abstract: Situated in the centre of the Saronic Gulf, the island of Aegina has long been recognized as a powerful force in the cultural, political, economic, and strategic history of fifth-century Greece. The island is well known as the original home of the magnificent Doric architecture and sculpture of the Temple of Aphaia and of many of the patrons of the epinician poets Pindar and Bacchylides; with a thriving maritime economy and an effective navy, Aegina was powerful enough to challenge the security and ambitions of its neighbour Athens, by whom it was reduced to a kleruchy at the start of the Peloponnesian War. Many of the fascinating aspects of the island within the history and culture of fifth-century Greece have, however, been studied separately, rendering a rounded view of the significance of the island, and the significance of the island's choral lyric poetry, difficult. This volume aims to redress the balance by suggesting ways in which the different aspects of the island's make-up can fruitfully be explored together. Eleven chapters by established and younger scholars examine different aspects of the island's nature, and factors which link them: mythological genealogies, economics, cult song, religion, athletics, epinician poetry, inter-state networking, aristocratic politics and culture, art history, and the views of the island offered by classical historiography. The interdisciplinary nature of the volume aims to provide new insights into the diversity and significance of classical Greek history and culture, as well as being suggestive for future research on the cultural and political diversity of classical Greece.

Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2007)

Abstract: Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition combines close literary analysis o... more Abstract: Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition combines close literary analysis of Bacchylides' poetry with detailed discussion of the central role poetry played in a variety of differing political contexts throughout Greece in the early fifth century BC. In Bacchylides' praise poetry, David Fearn argues, the poet manipulates a wide range of earlier Greek literature not only to elevate the status of his wealthy patrons, but also to provoke thought about the nature of political power and aristocratic society. New light is also shed on Bacchylides' Dithyrambs, through detailed discussion of the evidence for the kuklios khoros ('circular chorus') and its relation to a variety of different religious festivals, especially within democratic Athens. The links created between literary concerns and cultural contexts reinvigorate these underappreciated poems and reveal their central importance for the self-definition of political communities.

Papers by David Fearn

Introduction: Eyes and 'I's

Pindar's Eyes: Visual and Material Culture in Epinician Poetry, 2017

The introduction sets the following discussions in their scholarly context, with particular atten... more The introduction sets the following discussions in their scholarly context, with particular attention to other contemporary approaches to lyric both within Classics and in comparative literature and critical theory, as well as to art- historical approaches. Literary approaches to lyric deixis are brought together with art-historical and other literary approaches to visuality, subjectivity, and ecphrasis. Pindar’s immersion in a world of material culture and attention to the world as perceived visually fosters a special poetic creativity. The upshot is a poetics of referentiality, according to which Pindar’s consumers are invited to consider the distance between their own situatedness and the worlds being creatively referred to, through the complex mediation of poetic voices. The sensibilities, attitudes, and experiences being constructed also contribute to a new understanding of the importance of lyric as a culturally valuable resource in fifth-century Greece.

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‘Lyric reception and sophistic literarity in Timotheus’ Persae’ in Bruno Currie and Ian Rutherford (eds.) The Reception of Greek Lyric Poetry in the Ancient World: Tra[nsmiss]ion, {Canon}ization <and Paratext> (Mnemosyne Supplement 430, Brill, 2019) 205–38

The Reception of Greek Lyric Poetry in the Ancient World: Tra[nsmiss]ion, {Canon}ization <and Paratext>, 2019

‘The allure of narrative in Greek lyric poetry’ in Jonas Grethlein, Luuk Huitink and Aldo Tagliabue (eds.) Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece: Under the Spell of Stories (OUP, 2019) 36–58

Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece: Under the Spell of Stories, 2019

‘Materialities of political commitment? Textual events, material culture, and metaliterarity in Alcaeus’ in F. Budelmann and T. Phillips (eds.) Textual Events: Performance and the Lyric in Early Greece (OUP, 2018) 93–113

Textual Events: Performance and the Lyric in Early Greece, 2018

Bacchylidean myths

Reading the Victory Ode, 2012

Review of Pindar's poetry, patrons, and festivals: from archaic Greece to the Roman Empire, by Hornblower, S. and Morgan, C. (eds.)

Kleos Versus Stone? Lyric Poetry and Contexts for Memorialization

Inscriptions and their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature, 2013

(P.A.) Leven The Many-Headed Muse: Tradition and Innovation in Late Classical Greek Lyric Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. x + 377. £65/$99. 9781107018532

The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2016

Imperialist Fragmentation and the Discovery of Bacchylides

Classics and Imperialism in the British Empire, 2010

Literature (S.) Hornblower and (C.) Morgan Eds Pindar's Poetry, Patrons, and Festivals: from Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xiv + 473, illus. £80. 9780199296729

The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2009

(M.) Drower Ed. Letters from the Desert. The Correspondence of Flinders and Hilda Petrie. Oxford: Aris & Phillips (Oxbow), 2004. Pp. xvi + 224, illus. £20. 0856687480

The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2006

(P.) Spencer Ed. The Egypt Exploration Society: the Early Years (EES Occasional Publications 16). London: The Egypt Exploration Society, 2007. Pp. ix + 262, illus. £20. 9780856981852 (pbk)

The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2011

Imperialist fragmentation and the discovery of Bacchylides

The Keians and their choral lyric : Athenian, Epichoric, and Panhellenic perspectives

Aeginetan epinician culture : naming, ritual, and politics

Greek Lyric of the Archaic and Classical Periods (Brill RPCP, 2020): first two sections

Greek Lyric of the Archaic and Classical Periods: From the Past to the Future of the Lyric Subject, 2020

Greek lyric, poetry, Sappho, Pindar, historicism, affect, form, subjectivity, Greek literature, l... more

Download

Greek Lyric of the Archaic and Classical Periods: From The Past to the Future of the Lyric Subject. Brill Research Perspectives in Classical Poetry (RPCP) 1.1 (Brill, 2020)

Research Perspectives in Classical Poetry, 2020

Pindar's Eyes: Visual and Material Culture in Epinician Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2017)

(ed.) Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry. Myth, History, and Identity in the Fifth Century BC (Oxford University Press, 2010)

Bacchylides: Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2007)

Introduction: Eyes and 'I's

Pindar's Eyes: Visual and Material Culture in Epinician Poetry, 2017

Download

The Reception of Greek Lyric Poetry in the Ancient World: Tra[nsmiss]ion, {Canon}ization <and Paratext>, 2019

Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece: Under the Spell of Stories, 2019

Textual Events: Performance and the Lyric in Early Greece, 2018

Bacchylidean myths

Reading the Victory Ode, 2012

Review of Pindar's poetry, patrons, and festivals: from archaic Greece to the Roman Empire, by Hornblower, S. and Morgan, C. (eds.)

Kleos Versus Stone? Lyric Poetry and Contexts for Memorialization

Inscriptions and their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature, 2013

(P.A.) Leven The Many-Headed Muse: Tradition and Innovation in Late Classical Greek Lyric Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. x + 377. £65/$99. 9781107018532

The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2016

Imperialist Fragmentation and the Discovery of Bacchylides

Classics and Imperialism in the British Empire, 2010

The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2009

(M.) Drower Ed. Letters from the Desert. The Correspondence of Flinders and Hilda Petrie. Oxford: Aris & Phillips (Oxbow), 2004. Pp. xvi + 224, illus. £20. 0856687480

The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2006

(P.) Spencer Ed. The Egypt Exploration Society: the Early Years (EES Occasional Publications 16). London: The Egypt Exploration Society, 2007. Pp. ix + 262, illus. £20. 9780856981852 (pbk)

The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2011

Imperialist fragmentation and the discovery of Bacchylides

The Keians and their choral lyric : Athenian, Epichoric, and Panhellenic perspectives

Aeginetan epinician culture : naming, ritual, and politics

The Ceians and their choral lyric: Athenian, epichoric and pan-Hellenic perspectives

Performance, Politics and Dissemination, 2011

Aeginetan Epinician Culture: Naming, Ritual, and Politics

Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry, 2010

Introduction: Aegina in Contexts

Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry, 2010

Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry

'Kleos v Stone? Lyric Poetry and Contexts for Memorialization', in P. Liddel and P. Low (eds.), Inscriptions and their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford 2013) 231–53

Abstract: It is generally thought that the lyric poets were hostile to materialist as opposed to ... more Abstract: It is generally thought that the lyric poets were hostile to materialist as opposed to kleos-driven, orally delivered, forms of commemoration. However, an investigation of certain test-cases, as well as a broader view of the relation between lyric poetry and other artistic forms of commemoration, shows that the issue is in need of further clarification and modification. This chapter offers a contextually-nuanced interpretation of the available evidence for the inscribing of archaic and classical poetry on stone. The following issues are discussed: what account should we give of the relation between lyric poetry and epigraphy? What account are we to give of the nature of materialistic metaphors in lyric poetry; what contexts need we supply for such poems? And what of the corollary, the use of the orally-inspired language of kleos in epigraphic texts? Are there specific contextual conditions which invite a particularly close relationship between material and non-material forms of commemoration? What forms did inscriptions of non-epigrammatic texts take, and what functions did they have? Key texts include Simonides 581 PMG (on Kleoboulos of Lindos) and 531 PMG (the memorial for the Spartan war-dead). The aim is to produce a coherent account of the social and cultural impact of such interfaces between poetry and epigraphy, as well as art, as not only rival, but also complementary, and sometimes combined, modes of commemoration: part of a broader appreciation of ways in which archaic and classical Greeks thought about themselves, their dead, their gods, and their pasts.

Review of Uhlig, A. S. (2019) Theatrical Reenactment in Pindar and Aeschylus (Cambridge): BMCR 2020.06.38.

BMCR, 2020

Review of J. W. Day (2010), Archaic Greek Epigram and Dedication: Representation and Reperformance (Cambridge), Journal of Hellenic Studies 132 (2012) 175–6

Review of P. Spencer (ed.) (2007), The Egypt Exporation Society: The Early Years (London), Journal of Hellenic Studies 131 (2011) 302–3

Review of Hornblower & Morgan (eds.) (2007), Pindar’s Poetry, Patrons, and Festivals (Oxford), Journal of Hellenic Studies 129 (2009) 141–2

Review of Margaret Drower (2004), Letters from the Desert: The Correspondence of Flinders and Hilda Petrie (London), Journal of Hellenic Studies 126 (2006) 227-8

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