Toĩs mikkoĩs mikkà: poética e ambiguidade social em Calímaco de Cirene

Abstract

This dissertation aims to propose possible relations between essential traits of the Callimachean poetics (impulse for novelty, refinement, smallness, a certain social realism) and the traditional social position of the poet: engaged in a relationship guided by archaic aristocratic ethics, in which any form of explicit enrichment through poetry is frowned upon, the poet often sees himself as part of the social circle and power projects of his sponsors, but at the same time as a professional unmindful of these relationships. Writing centuries after this relationships emerged and crystallized, but at a time of creative appropriation of the literary tradition, Callimachus recreates in his work this topos, which is visible in the oscillation of his later biographical tradition, where there is a constant tension between a noble past and the expectation of what would be a “poet's life”, and also in programmatic contexts of his poetry.We believe that in these contexts his ambition is double and especially productive for the debate: Callimachus engages in the aristocratic resumption of his bosses and, in the same movement, builds a poetics suited to the aesthetic aspirations of his time.