Introduction

Abstract

It would be depressingly easy, and not very instructive, to document the neglect of ‘later’ Greek poetry in books that claim to offer accessible introductions to ancient literature; that it is still possible to do so from books written very recently, when the whole notion of ‘the classical canon’ has come under increasingly strenuous examination and the study of ‘later antiquity’ has properly come into its own, might seem more depressing still, though it also sheds light on how the academy views its task of disseminating trends in research more broadly. In any case, any such catalogue of neglect would be widely (and perhaps rightly) regarded as a rhetorical move of self-justification of a kind very familiar in academic discourse; after all, it took years of voluminous writing about the ancient novel before scholars in that field abandoned the ritual complaint about the ‘neglect’ of this literature (the torch has perhaps been handed on to the study of early Christian narrative).