Both Bacchylides 5 and 17 contain mythic narratives that subvert audience expectations by introducing a heroic quest only to depart from its anticipated trajectory. Despite differences in genre, occasion, and commission, the two odes employ a similar narrative strategy. Each introduces a well-known hero and establishes the expectation that the poem will narrate a familiar quest, then frustrates those expectations by interrupting the action and leaving the quest unfinished. These interruptions redirect the audience’s attention from heroic achievement to the characterization of the hero, strengthening the rhetorical force of the mythic exemplum. In doing so, Bacchylides demonstrates his skill in interpreting myths and reshaping them to serve the particular purposes of distinct poetic and performance contexts.
About the Guest
Kathryn Caliva is Assistant Professor of History and Director of the Classics Minor at St. Bonaventure University. Her teaching and research span Greek and Roman civilization, mythology, and Latin language, with particular emphasis on the literary and cultural worlds of ancient Greece.
Her scholarship explores the intersection of poetry and religion in antiquity, focusing on how narrative, myth, and divine speech shape authority and belief in ancient texts. She is also interested in the social roles of women in the ancient world and the voices of female speakers in Greek literature.
Professor Caliva’s work has appeared in leading journals including Classical Philology and the American Journal of Philology, with recent publications on divine speech and mythic authority in archaic Greek poetry. She is currently developing a monograph on speech acts in Greek lyric, examining how poetic speakers construct authority through relationships with the divine and mastery of mythic knowledge.