La filosofia come spunto poetico e polemico in Callimaco

Callimachus is one of the poets who more openly manifests and defends a specific way of understanding poetry, and therefore he has a place in the history of ancient aesthetics. In addition to that, he also shows clear contacts with Plato’s and Aristotle’s writings, and in general he takes part to a debate that goes back to the positions of the two great philosophers, probably to criticize both. This paper claims that it is more than likely that Callimachus knew the Socratic school of Cyrene, his hometown. This could be foreshadowed in Aitia fr. 43.12-17 Pf.: it is in fact significant that Callimachus in this passage examines the validity of the auditory and cognitive experience in opposition to other forms of pleasures, namely the sensual ones. Morevover, he appears to be connected, both as an author and as a critic, to the literary disputes between Hellenistic philosophers as well as writers. For these reasons Callimachus deserves to be read in the light of the philosophical controversies of the Hellenistic and Imperial age.