SOURCE: "The Practice of Pictorial Realism" and "The Everyday and the Low in Alexandrian Poetry," in Realism in Alexandrian Poetry: A Literature and Its Audience, Croom Helm, 1987, pp. 55-112, 155-227.
In the following excerpt, Zanker studies the use of pictorial realism among Alexandrian poets, looking at Callimachus alongside Appollonius, Theocritus, and Herodas. Zanker's discussion of Callimachus considers many of his works, including the Aetia and the Hymns, but his thesis rests primarly on an extended study of the Hecale, which he finds particularly demonstrates the meaning of pictorial realism. He argues that Callimachus uses the style for a specific meaning—to show "that appearances may be deceptive and that moral nobility can be found in people of lowly circumstances"—and that he achieved "a totally new tone … in epic" with his use of pictorial realism.
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