"In The First Poets, Schmidt rescues the lives of classical Greek poets from their relative obscurity. Here is Orpheus, the first of the first poets, healer, mystic, and magical fixer; and Homer, about whom almost nothing is known for certain except the magnificence of his two great epic poems. Here are Linos and Arion, who survive only in legend; and Amphion, who survives through the tales we ascribe to him. Here are Sappho, the greatest Greek woman writer, and Hesiod; Hipponax, the "dirty old man of poetry"; and Theocritus, the father of the pastoral; and many others." "Combining the verifiable facts of their lives and the narratives provided by later writers, Schmidt walks the fine line between fact and scholarly conjecture to create vivid, animated, wonderfully compelling portraits of these ancestors of our culture."--BOOK JACKET.

Map on lining papers.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

I. Orpheus of Thrace II. The legend poets III. Homer IV. The Homeric Apocrypha V. The Iliad and the Odyssey VI. Hesiod VII. Archilochus of Paros VIII. Alcman of Sardis IX. Mimnermus of Colophon X. Semonides of Amorgos XI. Alcaeus of Mytilene XII. Sappho of Eressus XIII. Theognis of Megara

XIV. Solon of Athens XV. Stesichorus of Himera XVI. Ibycus of Rhegion XVII. Anacreon of Teos XVIII. Hipponax of Ephesus XIX. Simonides of Cos XX. Corinna of Tanagra XXI. Pindar of Thebes XXII. Bacchylides of Cos XXIII. Callimachus of Cyrene XXIV. Apollonius of Rhodes XXV. Theocritus of Syracuse.