Abstract

This dissertation handles the poetics of Philodemus of Gadara, a first century BCE Epicurean philosopher and poet. His views are recoverable from several of his treatises, which are primarily polemical and without positive exposition. However, his views are recoverable from careful readings of the debates, rare direct evidence, and attention to his commitments, which as a loyal member of the school, he could not contradict. The first, introductory, chapter treats Philodemus' biography, the history of scholarship on the topic, and introduces some technical matters (often editorial) and conventions. The second chapter treats the history of the Garden's engagement with poetics. Epicurus did not write an On Poems but Metrodorus did. Other early Epicureans, as well as Zeno of Sidon, Demetrius Laco, and Siro and other Epicureans are examined as well. In chapter three, “The Prolepsis of the Poem,” I discuss what counts as a poem for Epicureans. Philodemus indicates that there were prolepseis of “poetry” and “poem;” the Epicureans meant basically what we mean by the terms. In chapter four, “Poetry as Techne and the Uses of Poetry,” I argue that poetry counts as an art for the Epicureans, but not a useful one. In my fifth chapter, “The Form, Content, Judgment, and Purpose of Poems,” I examine Philodemus' views as what form and content are, and the ways in which they interact. They are interdependent: the content depends on the words used to describe it, but there cannot be language without a topic. He values form above content in judging poems. The poem has an strange effect: it produces “additional thoughts” in the audience, by which they are entertained. It seems clear that Philodemus expected good poets to arrange form and content suggestively, so that the poems could exert a lasting pull on the minds of the audience. My sixth chapter collects a miscellany of topics which Philodemus handles but which do not fit neatly into another chapter. I discuss his views on genre, mimesis, “appropriateness,” utility, and various technical terms. The seventh chapter contains a concluding summary.