Archilochus' "Cologne Epode" in context

The purpose of this contribution to the long-standing debate concerning Archilochus and his poetry is three-fold. First, I will review relevant scholarship to date, paying particular attention to what Snell and Rankin see as the interior mode of Archilochus' poetry. This concept of interiority, I will show, is an inadequate means of understanding the intricacies of Archilochean verse; a more suitable explanation is needed. Second, in response to this need, I will consider the ideas of Kenneth Dover on Ihc naUirc of primitive song, and examine how they have been used by Gregory Nagy and Martin West. I will argue that the scholarship on Archilochus presents a bard whose poetry is largely communal and traditional.