Mimnermus

Mimnermus of Colophon ( Ancient Greek Μίμνερμος Mimnermus, Mimnermus Latinized ) was a Greek poet, who probably lived around 600 BC. His works are preserved only in fragments.

Life

Mimnermus was the first who made the elegy to support his love poetry. His creative period fell in the crisis period of the independence struggles of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, the erwehrten the growing power of the Lydian kings. One of the surviving fragments of his poems refers to this fight and contrasts the increasing effeminacy of his countrymen with the bravery of those who had once defeated the Lydian king Gyges.

His most important poems were a set of Lamentations, which were addressed to a Nanno and named after her. She was his mistress, and flute player. These poems were collected in two books. A recurring motif and main theme is the contrast between love and joyful youth suffering full age, but also Mythical and Historical he took her into the circle of his poetry. At then latched seamlessly onto Alexandrian and Roman elegiac poets.

His life data are largely unknown, but allow descriptions of a solar eclipse on the years around 600 close.

Editions and translations

• Dirk Uwe Hansen ( ed.): Early Greek elegies, Greek and German. Theognis; Mimnermus; Phocylides. Darmstadt 2005