Alexandrian poets and Pindar

The author of the article proves that Pindar served as necessary source and model for the Alexandrian poets. It is not by chance that Callimachus refers to him in his most significant programmatic statements on poetry. It is no coincidence, either, that allusions to the fourth Pythian ode are also concentrated around the key moments of Apollonius’ narration (departure, meetings with the beloved, the hero’s trial, wedding and the poem’s ending). Pindar appears a source of the ideas for Callimachus anticipating his own notion of poetry. Callimachus, while formally opposing himself to the previous tradition, with the help of quotes and allusions constantly relies upon that very tradition; his picking up from it shows which ideas and images correspond to the main principles of Alexandrian poetics, Pindar plays here an important role. Apollonius considers Pindar among his major predecessors when recounting the story of the Argonauts. The poem of the Alexandrian poet and the fourth Pythian ode are obviously united by this topic. In the “Argonautica” there are lots of lexical parallels to Pindar. Pindaric expressions become the epic formulas in “Argonautica”. According to the author’s aim, Apollonius’ epic poem and the fourth Pythian ode could interact in the mind of the reader. They represent a certain unity, complementing each other. In this way, Pindar remains the major source uniting Callimachus and Apollonius, the poets traditionally opposed to each other.