Praxilla (500–500 BCE)
Born 500 BCE, died 500 BCE.
Praxilla (Ancient Greek: Πράξιλλα), was a Greek lyric poet of the 5th century BC from Sicyon on the Gulf of Corinth. Five quotations attributed to Praxilla and three paraphrases from her poems survive. The surviving fragments attributed to her come from both religious choral lyric and drinking songs (skolia); the three paraphrases are all versions of myths. Various social contexts have been suggested for Praxilla based on this range of surviving works. These include that Praxilla was a hetaira (courtesan), or that she was a professional musician. Alternatively, the apparent implausibility of a respectable Greek woman writing drinking songs has been explained by suggesting that her poetry was in fact composed by two different authors, or that the drinking songs derive from a non-elite literary tradition rather than being authored by a single writer. Praxilla was apparently well-known in antiquity: she was sculpted in bronze by Lysippus and parodied by Aristophanes. In the modern world, she has been referenced in artworks by Cy Twombly and Judy Chicago, and one of her poems was adapted by the Irish poet Michael Longley.
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