Literary Reflections on the Dithyrambic Genre

Abstract:This article addresses the question of how the dithyramb was classified in antiquity, examining in detail two fragmentary papyri (P.Graec.Vindob. 19996a–b; P.Berol. 9671 verso) alongside other testimonia which comment on the nature and development of the dithyrambic genre. While the majority of these testimonia expect the dithyramb to be associated with Dionysus, some show that this Dionysiac link was not exclusively followed as the defining criterion for the poems' classification, even after the Alexandrian taxonomy of lyric genres had been established. This article demonstrates that throughout antiquity generic identification of dithyrambs was a process that was always in the making.