Making Men: Gender and the Poet in Pindar

Abstract

The identity of Pindar’s “I” has long proven difficult to interpret. This chapter moves the focus away from the ἐγώ and the poet/chorus debate, onto the gendered terms which are used to construct the persona of the poet and his milieu. A close reading of the gendering of terms for “poet” in Pindar shows how a masculinizing image of the poet and his community is built up, from the mechanisms of inspiration between (female) goddess and (male) prophet-poet, to the valorizing “man-making” function of Pindar’s songs. By using gender as a lens for the discussion of first-person statements, the aim is to shift the conversation from simplified dichotomies around the identity of the “I” in Pindar to the poetics of the discourse of masculinity which pervades Pindar’s poetry and which crosses between poet, chorus, audience, and the subjects of song.