Beyond the canon: Hellenistic scholars and their texts

This paper examines the surviving records of authors and genres studied during Hellenistic times. Only a limited number of texts was edited and commented on at the scholarly centres of Alexandria and Pergamum, and the set of texts had been established in fifth- and fourth century Athens, by Aristotle and his school in particular. Although Hellenistic scholars mostly concentrated on these works, there is, nonetheless, some documentation regarding their interest in minor authors, in non-canonical genres, and also in a number of coeval poets.