As A. Ford notes at the beginning of his essay in this collection, the study of genre has come to arouse a certain amount of ‘suspicion’ (p. 57) amongst literary critics in recent decades. At the same time, it is undeniable that humans seem almost instinctively to categorise bodies of literature and that these categories (genres, if you will), whether they be fully articulated or merely felt intuitively, dramatically affect our interpretations and understanding of specific texts, let alone of bodies of texts that are seen as (generically, of course) related. In other words, a new collection of essays on genre in ancient Greek poetry is a most welcome addition to a field that, for some time now, has impressed mainly for the meagre pickings it has offered.

In their introduction, the editors open with a famous passage from Plato's Laws (700a9–e31) and a less well-known fragment of Pindar (fr. 128c SM), both of which present (seemingly) straightforward means of categorising ancient Greek lyric genres. The passages confirm that the question of genre was a subject of fascination for the Greeks themselves, and Foster, Kurke and Weiss ably demonstrate the incongruity between Pindar's and Plato's neat categories and the actual evidence of ancient lyric. The value of exploring ancient Greek notions of genre is thus implicitly confirmed, and the authors then provide a concise synopsis of classical scholarship on the question, with a particular focus on the seminal work of C. Calame and G. Nagy. In the second part of the introduction, the editors present the three thematic streams that flow throughout the various contributions: ‘Genre Mixing’, ‘The Ritual and the Fictional’ and ‘Materiality, Affect, and the Body’, each of which draws on distinct theoretical frameworks, some of which may be more familiar to classicists (e.g. New Materialism) than others (e.g. the work of Roland Greene).

Part 1 consists of a single essay by Nagy, ‘Genre, Occasion, and Choral Mimesis Revisited, with Special Reference to the “Newest Sappho”’, who looks back to and builds on his earlier work tying genre to occasion. Having previously argued that genre can be understood as a ‘set of rules that generates’ a performance (p. 34), Nagy goes over the evidence that Sappho's poems were originally destined for choral performance at festivals on Lesbos, while also noting their subsequent lives on other occasions (e.g. public solo performances in Athens). Nagy's primary focus is ultimately the ‘Brothers Song’, which leads to a discussion of the connection between the poetic persona(e), the emotions related in Sappho's poetry and how these elements should help us understand the relationship between genre and occasion. In Nagy's terms ‘the occasion for choral performance’ is not so much the emotional crises themselves but rather ‘the mimesis [i.e. re-enactment] of such emotional crises’ (p. 52). The argument is at times too abstract to tease out fully the implications for our understanding of genre in the ancient world (particularly since Nagy touches on numerous other sub-topics), but, Nagy ties it together neatly in the final part of the chapter with a delightful comparison to the performative occasions suggested by Lesley Gore's 1963 pop hit ‘It's My Party’.

Part 2, ‘Genre, Generification, and Performance’, includes three essays, each on very different topics and aspects of choral performance. In his chapter on the ‘Linus-song’ Ford adeptly demonstrates some of the problems caused by classical mimesis-based theories of genre and argues that archaic and classical poets engaged in an ongoing process of ‘generification’. A precise definition of what Ford means by the term generification would have been helpful, but astute readings of (among others) Pindar and Euripides show how Greek poets frequently represented, reconsidered and even engaged in the process of genre creation. T. Power's contribution, ‘Sappho's Parachoral Monody’, suggests that Sappho's fragment 17 is in fact a monody masquerading as a choral song (a ‘monodic “choral fiction”’, p. 97), perhaps as a means to enhance the efficacy of its prayer. The arguments presented are compelling, if ultimately impossible to prove. Just as important is Power's reminder that we must not be too dogmatic in assigning performance and genre based on our assumptions about Greek poets or on fragmentary evidence that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. F. Schironi, in ‘The Speaking Persona’, examines scholia to Pindar and demonstrates that their interest in the Pindaric chorus was limited primarily to its role as a speaker within the poems, rather than other aspects of choral performance (e.g. dance). This in turn suggests that the scholiasts were influenced by classical Greek theory of genre (especially Plato and Aristotle), which classified poetry according to the ‘speaking persona’ audible within a composition.

Part 3, ‘Genre Mixing’, begins with D. Steiner's essay on generic interactions between choral lyric and hexametric catalogue poetry. The ‘structural similarities’ (p. 165) between the two genres are certainly suggestive, though some shared features (e.g. the use of paratactic language in hexameter catalogues and paratactic imagery in depictions of choruses) may simply reflect a common goal, so to speak, rather than (as Steiner argues) mutual influence. In her chapter on ‘Generic Hybridity in Athenian Tragedy’ Weiss neatly shows how by blending a range of non-dramatic genres, both within a single song and over the course of a play, Euripides (in particular) could subtly alter the audience's perception of the dramatic action, for example by signalling significant shifts in the action on stage. Crucially, we also get a better view of tragedy's ability to accommodate, with great fluidity, a vast range of choral traditions, and we even catch glimpses of moments, as in Trojan Women, where the very hybridity of tragedy is both enacted and, in a sense, theorised. Finally, in a rich discussion of Bacchylides’ Ode 16, Foster pushes back at the consensus view that the poem was a dithyramb performed in Delphi during Apollo's annual absence, arguing instead that the ode was originally performed at the Thargelia in Athens. Foster begins with a close reading of the lacunary opening strophe, showing that Bacchylides seems to connect discrete song-types to specific locations, gently pushing back on tragedy's tendency to consume and hybridise these genres. In the rest of the poem, conversely, Bacchylides presents a condensed version of Attic tragedy (specifically Sophocles’ Trachiniae), a myth that is perfectly at home at the Athenian Thargelia, yet also able to be exported beyond Athens. The end result is that, on the one hand, lyric genres are allowed to maintain their ‘autonomy’, while at the same time ‘Athenian songs get to be sung everywhere’ (p. 227).

Part 4, ‘Affect, Materiality, and the Body’, begins with M. Griffith's study of Korybantic performance, which consisted of music and dance along with (primarily) non-verbal articulations. Beyond providing a welcome survey of a song-type with which most readers will be less than intimately familiar, Griffith convincingly argues that Korybantic music should be considered a ‘distinct and socially important lyric genre’ (p. 233). Indeed, Korybantic performance seems to fall neatly into the category of ‘enthusiastic’ music that, as Griffith reminds us, Aristotle deemed an intrinsic and even beneficial part of musical culture. In his contribution on ‘Iambic Horror’ M. Telò examines how the material essence of the poetry of Archilochus and Hipponax forces us to ‘experience, almost physically, the edgy quality of iambos’ (p. 275). With a particular emphasis on the rough-sounding rho, which dominates some of the iambographers’ most aggressive fragments, as well as a conglomeration of prickly imagery (hedgehogs, craggy islands, prickly pears), Telò argues that the iambic genre served audiences and poets (particularly the more masochistic ones) with twin sensations of pleasure and pain. S. Estrin's essay on ‘Experiencing Elegy’ focuses primarily on a funerary elegy from the late sixth century bce inscribed on the Ambracian polyandrion. With close attention to the language and layout of the poem, as well as the manner in which the funerary monument itself was constructed, Estrin suggests how these inscribed memorials ‘configure’ the viewer's response, evoking either pity or grief, moving the reader/viewer from one to the other, and even bringing deeper significance to the generic choice of elegy as a poetic form of lament. In the last chapter, ‘Pindar, Paean 6: Genre as Embodied Cultural Knowledge’, S. Olsen effectively combines dance theory and close readings of the poem to demonstrate how Pindar's Paean 6 creates a sensory experience that could prompt an audience, even one at a solo sympotic performance, to recall their own ‘personal kinesthetic experience[s]’ (p. 341) in choral performance. This is especially meaningful since, as Olsen masterfully shows in the first part of the essay, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo suggests the god controlling the movements of the (resistant) Cretan chorus that performs the original Delphic paean.

As should by now be clear, the various essays take very different directions, not only in the genres that are examined, but indeed in the way that the very concept of genre is approached, defined and considered. Some essays address what a specific genre is, others what it does, or how it might influence its audience, how a genre could evolve, or how genre was seen by the ancient Greeks. A couple of contributions look at questions of genre only tangentially. Such diversity has a range of consequences, most of them positive, a few less so. Concerning the latter, the most noteworthy issue one might take is that, unlike (for example) with the work of Calame and Nagy some decades ago, no single approach emerges as an effective means to understand how we are to deal with issues of genre in ancient Greek poetry. The volume offers no roadmap.

At the same time, starting the collection with Nagy, whose work many essays in the collection both depart from and amend, helps give a holistic understanding of the state of the question(s) and of where we might proceed from here. The diversity of viewpoints, even on specific points (such as the question of chorality in Sappho poem 17), is also instrumental in providing a sense of the range of results different approaches might yield. And while the main scope of each contribution will not necessarily hold the same interest for all readers, almost every essay contains points of general interest, particularly concerning the history of theory (classical and modern) about ancient Greek poetic genres. Finally, without exception, the essays are willing to push the boundaries of established wisdom and explore new ways to understand ancient Greek poetic genres and – as a result – the poetry itself. If we take the main goal of the collection as an opportunity to expand our knowledge of genre in ancient Greece and to suggest new areas of exploration, then it is, by any measure, a success.