Page "Callimachus" Paragraph 5

Elitist and erudite, claiming to " abhor all common things ," Callimachus is best known for his short poems and epigrams.

During the Hellenistic period, a major trend in Greek-language poetry was to reject epics modelled after Homer.

Instead, Callimachus urged poets to " drive their wagons on untrodden fields ," rather than following in the well worn tracks of Homer, idealizing a form of poetry that was brief, yet carefully formed and worded, a style at which he excelled.

In the prologue to his Aetia, he claims that Apollo visited him and admonished him to " fatten his flocks, but to keep his muse slender ," a clear indication of his choice of carefully crafted and allusive material.

" Big book, big evil " ( μέγα βιβλίον μέγα κακόν, mega biblion, mega kakon ) is another of his verses, attacking long, old-fashioned poetry using the very style Callimachus proposed to replace it.

Callimachus also wrote poems in praise of his royal patron and a wide variety of other poetic styles, as well as prose and criticism.