This book presents a new text and a detailed commentary for many of the central pieces of Greek lyric poetry. For authors from Alcman to Simonides, the pieces chosen are usually the longest and best-preserved; a single large poem each is taken from Bacchylides and Pindar; two odes from tragedy illustrate the adoption of lyric into drama. The text and apparatus contain the results of fresh work on the papyri and numerous new suggestions. The commentary is chiefly literary, and there is an introduction to each poet which gives the works a context from a wide range of evidence. The book joins textual and literary criticism of the poets together, providing a close and sustained analysis of important poems across the genre, and enables the reader to see in detail the development and diversity of a remarkable body of poetry.