Early Greek Poets Timeline

Because of limitations inherent in the study of ancient history, we don't know for certain when many of these early Greek poets were born or died. Some dates, like those for Homer, are guesses. New scholarship could revise these dates. So, this early Greek poets timeline is a way to visualize relative chronology within the same genre. The genres here are: epic, iambic, elegiac, and lyric poetry.

Epic Poets

Epic poetry told the stories of heroes and gods or provided catalogues, like genealogies of the gods. Epics were chanted to a musical accompaniment on the cithara, which the rhapsode himself would play. The meter of epic was the dactylic hexameter, which can be represented, with symbols for light (u), heavy (-), and variable (x) syllables, as:
-uu|-uu|-uu|-uu|-uu|-x

• 2d half of 8th century B.C. - Homer
• fl. 633 - Hesiod

Poets of Elegies and Iambics

Iambic poetry was informal and often obscene or about common topics like food. Whereas iambics were suitable for everyday entertainment, elegy tended to be more decorous and suitable for formal occasions like campaigns and public gatherings. Iambic poetry was based on the iambic meter. An iam is an unstressed (light) syllable followed by a stressed (heavy). The meter for elegy, which shows its relationship to the epic, is usually described as a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic pentameter, which together make up an elegiac couplet. Coming from the Greek for five, the pentameter has five feet, whereas the hexameter (hex = six) has six.

• fl. 650 - Archilochus
• fl. 650 - Callinus
• fl. 640-637 - Tyrtaeus
• b. 640 - Solon
• fl. 650 - Semonides
• fl. 632-629 - Mimnermus
• fl. 552-541 - Theognis
• fl. 540-537 - Hipponax

Archaic Choral Lyric Poets

Elegiac poetry required two participants, one playing the pipe and one singing the poem. Lyric poetry did not require a second person, but choral lyric did require a chorus which would sing and dance. Lyric poetry was accompanied by a lyre or barbitos. Epic poetry was accompanied by a cithara.
Sub-genres of early choral lyric poetry were marriage song (hymenaios), dancing song, dirge (threnos), paean, maiden song (partheneion), processional (prosodion), hymn, and dithyramb.

• fl. 650 - Alcman
• 632/29-556/553 - Stesichorus

Monody

Monody was a type of lyric poetry, but as the mon- implies, it was for one person without a chorus.

• b. probably c. 630 - Sappho
• b. c. 620 - Alcaeus
• fl. c. 533 - Ibycus
• b. c. 570 - Anacreon

Later Choral Lyric

The occasions for choral lyric increased over time and new subgenres were added to praise human accomplishments (the enkomion) or for performance at drinking parties (symposia).

• b. 557/6 - Simonides
• b. 522 or 518 - Pindar
• Corinna - contemporary of Pindar (Korinna)
• b. c. 510 - Bacchylides

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Source

The Cambridge History of Classical Literature Volume I Part 1 Early Greek Poetry, edited by P.E. Easterling and B.M.W. Knox. Cambridge 1989.