Xenophanes’ Philosophical Elegiacs

Glenn W. Most’s Eleatic Lectures offer a comprehensive rereading of Xenophanes and of his place in the history of Greek thought. Traditionally interpreted in a fragmentary way, Xenophanes is here restored as the author of a unified intellectual project, in which theological reflection, inquiry into nature, and ethical prescription are closely intertwined. Through a combined analysis of the hexameter and elegiac fragments, Most shows how the elegies constitute the privileged site for the elaboration of a morality founded on measure, harmony, and civic usefulness.

The implications of this interpretation are discussed by
Bernardo Berruecos Frank | Fiorenza Bevilacqua | Sylvana Chrysakopoulou | Patrick J. Finglass | André Laks | James H. Lesher | Emese Mogyoródi | Glenn W. Most | David Sider | Shaul Tor