Fowler, Barbara Hughes — Hellenistic Aesthetic

Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. First Edition. Softcover. Size: 8vo 8" - 9" tall. Another fine addition to the series, Wisconsin Studies in Classics, this one penned by Barbara Hughes Fowler. Stated First Edition, First Printing, University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. Sterling condition softcover copy, with unfurled tips, tight binding, and clean internals, showing only very slight shelf- and edge-wear. Part of the publisher blurb reads, "Barbara Hughes Fowler introduces us to The Hellenistic Aesthetic by encouraging us to attend carefully to its "sparkle and music": "Hellenistic poetry brought to Western literature many of the qualities which we think of as modem: an interest in animals (especially pets), babies, children, women, and grotesques; common or working people and the tools of their trades; landscapes; cities; the passions of romantic love and of sinning; pathos; burlesque. The literature parallels the subject matter of the visual arts, where we find fishermen, hunchbacks, dancing dwarfs, drunken old women, women who have died in childbirth, kitchen utensils, and the expression of emotion in the faces of creatures as well as people. The new interest in genre scenes, in everyday people and their pursuits, is commonly understood to be the result of the decline of the city-state. Just as people turned to the individualistic philosophies of Stoicism and Epicureanism, so artists turned to the portrayal of the personal passions, the particulars of life. Literature became romantic rather than classical. So much surely is true. There were, however, other factors that shaped the literary and visual arts of the period. What went hand in hand with an interest in the particular and the individual was an increasing realism." Plentiful black-and-white photographs and illustrations. Volume contains scholarly apparatus in the form of, e.g., notes, index, and bibliography. xix, 3-213 pp.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. . . . Fine