Corinne at Cape Misene
Artist: Francois Gerard (French, 1770–1837)
Date: c. 1819-1821
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, France
Corinna
Corinna or Korinna was an ancient Greek lyric poet from Tanagra in Boeotia. Although ancient sources portray her as a contemporary of Pindar (born c. 518 BC), not all modern scholars accept the accuracy of this tradition. When she lived has been the subject of much debate since the early twentieth century, proposed dates ranging from the beginning of the fifth century to the late third century BC.
Corinna was from Tanagra in Boeotia. The Suda, a tenth-century encyclopedia, records that she was the daughter of Acheloodorus and Procratia, and was nicknamed Myia (Μυῖα, "the fly"). According to ancient tradition, she lived during the fifth century BC. She was supposed to have been a contemporary of Pindar, either having taught him, or been a fellow-pupil of Myrtis of Anthedon with him. Corinna was said to have competed with Pindar, defeating him in at least one poetry competition, though some sources claim five.
Corinna, like Pindar, wrote choral lyric poetry – as demonstrated by her invocation of Terpsichore, the Muse of dance and chorus, in one of her fragments. According to the Suda, she wrote five books of poetry. Her works were collected in a Boeotian edition in the late third or early second century BC, and later Hellenistic and Roman texts of Corinna derived from this.This Boeotian edition was produced in a scholarly format, with titles for the poems; it may have also included accent marks and hypotheses, but is unlikely to have included line numbers.