Lives of famous and less famous ancient Greek poets have proved to be a treasure trove of inspiration for authors and other artists across different times and cultures from Antiquity onwards. Texts as diverse as, for example, the pseudo-Herodotean Life of Homer, the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, the Mnesiepes inscription on Archilochus, the anonymous Lives of Greek tragedians, the dialogic Life of Euripides by Satyrus of Callatis, and the brief biographical entries on Greek poets in the Suda, make up a rich corpus that attests for a continuous interest in the Greek poet as a living character throughout the centuries.

In recent decades, scholarship on these Lives has increasingly turned from questions of historicity to different aspects of their narrative construction and to examining how such aspects relate to aetiological, (meta)literary or other functions. Scholars have thus opened up new directions in interpreting and evaluating these fascinating texts. Our workshop inscribes itself in this recent trend and aims to investigate and discuss different aspects underlying the construction of these texts as narratives.

We welcome abstracts on one or more ancient, late antique, or medieval Live(s) or biographical tradition(s) on ancient Greek poets and any aspect of their narrative construction, including but not limited to:

• Heroization
• Characterization
• Narrative patterns
• Rhetorical constructions
• Anecdotes
• Biographical epigrams
• Fiction and fictionality