Lyric after Pindar should be seen not as declining and petering out, but as developing in ways which radically question or play with the fundamentals of the genre (or “super-genre”). The stanza is a crucial feature of lyric up to Pindar, especially when seen textually; “modernist” expansion into huge astrophic entities (Timotheus, etc.) and “postmodern” reduction into stichic lines (Callimachus, etc.) both involve radical rethinking of the super-genre, and one is a reaction to the other. However, the most innovative postmodernists are the poets somewhat earlier than Callimachus and Theocritus (Simmias, Philicus, etc.); Callimachus and Theocritus continue their ideas with new twists and new point. And the stanza is not really dead: within Timotheus’ and Callimachus’ poems stanza-like structures are built up. The late-classical and Hellenistic development of lyric is as dynamic and thought-provoking as that of sculpture.
