CORINNA, a Greek lyric poetess, was a daughter of Archelodorus or Achelodorus and Procratia, and was born at Tanagra in Beeotia. As she resided during some period of her life at Thebes, she is some times called a Theban. She bore the surname Myia (stela, a fly), and is often spoken of under this name alone. Sho lived about a.c. 500, as we must infer from the persons with whom she was connected, and was a woman of unusual beauty. She is said to have been a disciple of the poetess !Syrtis, and to have herself instructed Pindar in his youth ; but afterwards to have contended with him in poetical con tests, and to have gained five victories over him. She appears at any rate to have exercised a very great influence upon the development of Pindar's youthful genius, and to have recognised his extraordinary powers; for she is said to have blamed Myrtis for venturing to enter into competition with him. The poems of Corinoa were collected and divided (probably by the grammarians) into five books, and in addition to this collection we have mention of epigrams and lyric gnomes. But not one entire poem of hers has come down to us, and only a very few fragments are extant, which scarcely enable us to form an idea of their merit. Her great reputation however is attested by the statues which were erected to her in several towns of Greece, and by the prominent place which the Alexandrine critics assigned to her among the lyric poetesses. She wrote in the Eolic dialect, which
however was interspersed with many Boeotian peculiarities. Her poems moreover appear to have been principally intended for Beeotians; for they abounded in allusions to Boeotian localities. From the frag ments extant we must infer that the subjects of some of her poems were traditions about mythical heroes, and as in addition to this we are told that she wrote fase, we might suppose that she also composed epic poetry, but we know from Hephmestion (p. 22, ed. Gaisford), that these were contained in the fifth book of her poems, and that they were choral odes or hymns in the heroic or epic verse. The frag ments of Corinna's poems are collected in F. Ch. Wolfs Fceneinarum IX. Illustrium Fragmenta et Elogia,' Hamburg, 1734, p. 42, &c.; in A. Schneider's ' Poetarum Grmcorum Fragmeuta,',Giessers 1802, 8vo ; and best in Th. Bersk's ' Poetae Lyrici p. 811, &c.
Suidas, in his article ' Corinoa,' mentions two other lyric poetesses of the name of Corinna, the one of Thespian or Corinth, and the other Corinna the younger of Thebes, who was surnamed Myia. But these two are otherwise uuknown, and it is generally supposed that Suidae is blundering in his usual way, and has made three persons out of ono.
(F. G. Welcker in Creuzer's vol. ii. p. 1, &c.; Bode, Guchichte der Hellenischen Dichtkun.st, vol. ii. part 2, p.115, &c.)