Iambic Ideas explores the concept of the 'iambic' as a genre. In a set of detailed studies, the contributors examine, across time, the idea of iambic through a wide variety of cultural settings-Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, and late antiquity. What emerges most clearly is that the 'iambic idea' is impossible to define in absolute terms: rather, the form of iambic keeps varying in response to a vast variety of historical contingencies. The variation is evident in such critical terms as the 'iambic tendency' in Sappho, the 'reusing of iambi' for Roman epodes, and even the instances of 'iambic absence' in comedy and other such related forms. In the end, what is most characteristic about the 'iambic' is its own inherent variability.

Edited by Alberto Cavarzere; Antonio Aloni and Alessandro Barchiesi - Contributions by Gianfranco Agosti; Angela M. Andrisano; Ewen Lyall Bowie; Lowell Edmunds; Stephen J. Harrison; Stephen J. Heyworth; Alessandro Russo; Lindsay C. Watson and Giuseppe Zan

Chapter 1 Early Greek Iambic Poetry: The Importance of Narrative Chapter 2 What Is That Man Doing in Sappho Chapter 3 Iambic Motifs in Alcaeus' Lyrics Chapter 4 Iambic Patterns in Aristophanic Comedy Chapter 5 Callimachus 4: From Performance to Writing Chapter 6 Iambic Presences in Ennius's Saturae Chapter 7 Catullian iambics, Catullian iambi Chapter 8 Horace and Iambos: The Poet as Literary Historian Chapter 9 Some Generic Problems in Horace's Epodes: or On (Not) Being Archilochus Chapter 10 Epode 14: Horace's carmen inconditum? Chapter 11 Ego polivi versibus senariis: Phaedrus and Iambic Poetry Chapter 12 Late Antique Iambics and iambikè idéa