The Περὶ ποιητῶν Literature. A General Outline and Survey of the Extant Fragments

The Greek manuscript tradition transmits various fragments of works with the title Περὶ ποιητῶν , composed by both philosophers and grammarians from the Classical to the Imperial periods. The aim of this paper is to analyse these surviving fragments with a view to delineating the contents, forms, and characteristics of this type of literature. In the first part, I propose a survey of all authors and fragments of ancient Greek works On Poets . The second section outlines their literary-historical profile. Based on comparison with ancient works treating similar topics, I suggest a unitary reading of the writings Περὶ ποιητῶν . Through a combination of biographical, exegetical, theoretical, and (perhaps) technical information, this type of literature appears to have comprised the earliest “histories” of ancient poetry.