Llewelyn Morgan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199554188
- eISBN:
- 9780191594991
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554188.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The wealth of metrical forms adopted by classical poetry is one of its characteristic features. Yet metre features only sporadically in contemporary criticism of ancient poetry. This book makes the ...
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The wealth of metrical forms adopted by classical poetry is one of its characteristic features. Yet metre features only sporadically in contemporary criticism of ancient poetry. This book makes the case that metre was central to the Roman experience of literature, and should be restored to a central position also in interpretation of that poetry. By the time Roman poets came to write hexameters, choliambics, and sapphics, these metres could all claim rich histories, and consequently brought a wealth of associations in their own right to the poems they carried. Powerful effects can be achieved by manipulation of the established characters of their metrical media: by giving the metre of classical Latin poetry its proper weight, critics can restore to that poetry a critical, neglected dimension. In four main chapters on representative metres or metre groups, this book considers how Roman poets exploited the connotations of metrical form: the ‘Catullan’ associations of the Flavian hendecasyllable; the logic that produced the ‘pure’ iambic trimeter; the sapphic stanza between Catullus, Horace, and Statius; and the various strategies attempted by poets to subvert the superlative status of the benchmark metre, the dactylic hexameter. Also considered are sotadeans, priapeans, saturnians, elegiacs, and Horace's epodic structures. Connections between poetic practice and the academic study of metre in antiquity are highlighted, and attention is also given both to Greek perceptions of the metres they bequeathed to Rome, and to the effect on Roman versification of the perception that these forms were irreducibly Greek.Less
The wealth of metrical forms adopted by classical poetry is one of its characteristic features. Yet metre features only sporadically in contemporary criticism of ancient poetry. This book makes the case that metre was central to the Roman experience of literature, and should be restored to a central position also in interpretation of that poetry. By the time Roman poets came to write hexameters, choliambics, and sapphics, these metres could all claim rich histories, and consequently brought a wealth of associations in their own right to the poems they carried. Powerful effects can be achieved by manipulation of the established characters of their metrical media: by giving the metre of classical Latin poetry its proper weight, critics can restore to that poetry a critical, neglected dimension. In four main chapters on representative metres or metre groups, this book considers how Roman poets exploited the connotations of metrical form: the ‘Catullan’ associations of the Flavian hendecasyllable; the logic that produced the ‘pure’ iambic trimeter; the sapphic stanza between Catullus, Horace, and Statius; and the various strategies attempted by poets to subvert the superlative status of the benchmark metre, the dactylic hexameter. Also considered are sotadeans, priapeans, saturnians, elegiacs, and Horace's epodic structures. Connections between poetic practice and the academic study of metre in antiquity are highlighted, and attention is also given both to Greek perceptions of the metres they bequeathed to Rome, and to the effect on Roman versification of the perception that these forms were irreducibly Greek.
Andrew Faulkner (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199589036
- eISBN:
- 9780191728983
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589036.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book is the first collection on the Homeric Hymns, a corpus of 33 hexameter poems celebrating gods that were probably recited at religious festivals, among other possible performance venues, and ...
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This book is the first collection on the Homeric Hymns, a corpus of 33 hexameter poems celebrating gods that were probably recited at religious festivals, among other possible performance venues, and were frequently attributed in antiquity to Homer. After a general introduction to modern scholarship on the Homeric Hymns, the chapters of the first part of the book examine in detail aspects of the longer narrative poems in the collection, while those of the second part give critical attention to the shorter poems and to the collection as a whole. The contributors to the volume offer a wide range of views on questions central to our understanding of the Homeric Hymns, which have attracted much interest in recent years.Less
This book is the first collection on the Homeric Hymns, a corpus of 33 hexameter poems celebrating gods that were probably recited at religious festivals, among other possible performance venues, and were frequently attributed in antiquity to Homer. After a general introduction to modern scholarship on the Homeric Hymns, the chapters of the first part of the book examine in detail aspects of the longer narrative poems in the collection, while those of the second part give critical attention to the shorter poems and to the collection as a whole. The contributors to the volume offer a wide range of views on questions central to our understanding of the Homeric Hymns, which have attracted much interest in recent years.
Jennifer Ingleheart
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199232536
- eISBN:
- 9780191716003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232536.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The strong visual appeal of Ovid's Metamorphoses has long invited comparison with the pleasures of pantomime, most influentially in a publication by Galinsky. In the study of Ovid's references from ...
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The strong visual appeal of Ovid's Metamorphoses has long invited comparison with the pleasures of pantomime, most influentially in a publication by Galinsky. In the study of Ovid's references from exile to his poetry being ‘danced in the crowded theatres’, this chapter argues in detail that the obvious text for pantomime realisation is the Metamorphoses, rather than the Heroides (as has occasionally been claimed); through close attention to the detail in Ovid's poetry, it explores how the subject‐matter of that epic, with its compact vignettes of action, emotive rhetoric, exotic settings, and underlying emphasis on bodily transformation, must have been suggestive to pantomime dancers. Furthermore the chapter argues that there is plenty of action which could easily be represented through movement, gesture, and basic stage props. The discussion incorporates the crucial evidence of Jacob of Sarugh about pantomime performances of the myth of Apollo and Daphne. This chapter engages with the issue of pantomime libretti.Less
The strong visual appeal of Ovid's Metamorphoses has long invited comparison with the pleasures of pantomime, most influentially in a publication by Galinsky. In the study of Ovid's references from exile to his poetry being ‘danced in the crowded theatres’, this chapter argues in detail that the obvious text for pantomime realisation is the Metamorphoses, rather than the Heroides (as has occasionally been claimed); through close attention to the detail in Ovid's poetry, it explores how the subject‐matter of that epic, with its compact vignettes of action, emotive rhetoric, exotic settings, and underlying emphasis on bodily transformation, must have been suggestive to pantomime dancers. Furthermore the chapter argues that there is plenty of action which could easily be represented through movement, gesture, and basic stage props. The discussion incorporates the crucial evidence of Jacob of Sarugh about pantomime performances of the myth of Apollo and Daphne. This chapter engages with the issue of pantomime libretti.
Edith Hall
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199232536
- eISBN:
- 9780191716003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232536.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
There is a possibility that one pantomime libretto based on a canonical tragedy does in fact survive. The candidate is a Latin hexameter poem, preserved only in a Barcelona papyrus, on the theme of ...
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There is a possibility that one pantomime libretto based on a canonical tragedy does in fact survive. The candidate is a Latin hexameter poem, preserved only in a Barcelona papyrus, on the theme of Alcestis' death, familiar to the ancient world above all from Euripides' Alcestis. The metre of the poem is shared by the Aeneid, which is known to have been performed by pantomime dancers, and the theme, the death of Alcestis, is known from other sources to have attracted practitioners of the medium. Moreover, the structure of the narrative, which entails five separate sections devoted to five characters in the myth, culminating in the protracted death of the heroine, offers exactly the successive changes of role and emotive vignettes that would facilitate a pantomime performance. The chapter suggests some criteria of style that could be used to assess the suitability of verse for danced realization, and offers a brief account of a modern Italian experiment in recreating the art of the pantomime through a danced realization of this very text.Less
There is a possibility that one pantomime libretto based on a canonical tragedy does in fact survive. The candidate is a Latin hexameter poem, preserved only in a Barcelona papyrus, on the theme of Alcestis' death, familiar to the ancient world above all from Euripides' Alcestis. The metre of the poem is shared by the Aeneid, which is known to have been performed by pantomime dancers, and the theme, the death of Alcestis, is known from other sources to have attracted practitioners of the medium. Moreover, the structure of the narrative, which entails five separate sections devoted to five characters in the myth, culminating in the protracted death of the heroine, offers exactly the successive changes of role and emotive vignettes that would facilitate a pantomime performance. The chapter suggests some criteria of style that could be used to assess the suitability of verse for danced realization, and offers a brief account of a modern Italian experiment in recreating the art of the pantomime through a danced realization of this very text.
A. P. David
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199292400
- eISBN:
- 9780191711855
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199292400.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter draws on two strands of evidence that bear on the form of the dactylic hexameter: one from Plato (Epinomis) and Aristotle (Metaphysics), one from a modern Greek folk dance (the συρτός). ...
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This chapter draws on two strands of evidence that bear on the form of the dactylic hexameter: one from Plato (Epinomis) and Aristotle (Metaphysics), one from a modern Greek folk dance (the συρτός). When combined with the new theory of the Greek accent, a theory of hexameter form emerges, which accounts for the peculiar features of traditional hexameter structure. It predicts that there will be two kinds of caesura in the third foot, with one of them favoured; and that there will be a bucolic diaeresis. Detailed analyses of emphasis and accentual reinforcement of metre in passages from Homer reveal such a musical richness, and rhythmic and harmonic density and complexity, that the notion of ‘composition-in-performance’ becomes implausible, and suggests that Homer’s texts, like Mozart’s, were scores that needed to be practiced and prepared in order to be performed.Less
This chapter draws on two strands of evidence that bear on the form of the dactylic hexameter: one from Plato (Epinomis) and Aristotle (Metaphysics), one from a modern Greek folk dance (the συρτός). When combined with the new theory of the Greek accent, a theory of hexameter form emerges, which accounts for the peculiar features of traditional hexameter structure. It predicts that there will be two kinds of caesura in the third foot, with one of them favoured; and that there will be a bucolic diaeresis. Detailed analyses of emphasis and accentual reinforcement of metre in passages from Homer reveal such a musical richness, and rhythmic and harmonic density and complexity, that the notion of ‘composition-in-performance’ becomes implausible, and suggests that Homer’s texts, like Mozart’s, were scores that needed to be practiced and prepared in order to be performed.
A. P. David
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199292400
- eISBN:
- 9780191711855
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199292400.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter considers the influence of a performance mode depicted by Homer — Demodocus the singer surrounded by a dancing circle — upon the phonological and semantic features of Homeric verse. A ...
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This chapter considers the influence of a performance mode depicted by Homer — Demodocus the singer surrounded by a dancing circle — upon the phonological and semantic features of Homeric verse. A circle dance is a locus of conjuration and chanted noun-and-epithet phrases, delimited metrically by the turning points of the dance, become uniquely evocative ‘choral signifiers’. Paolo Vivante’s aesthetic theory of these phrases thereby receives a grounding in attested performance practice, although ‘choral theory’ is required to account for both the poetics and the aesthetics of Homeric verse. The effects of a non-linguistic dance rhythm upon Homeric and Hesiodic phonology, morphology, and diction are discussed. It is shown that ‘poetic license’ is a necessary component in an honest analysis of epic usage. Gregory Nagy’s derivation of the hexameter from smaller, later lyric metrical segments is critiqued in light of Pierre Chantraine’s observation that the Greek language is demonstrably maladapted to the hexameter, as is not the case with lyric metres. The choral signifier cannot be reduced to a purely linguistic phenomenon.Less
This chapter considers the influence of a performance mode depicted by Homer — Demodocus the singer surrounded by a dancing circle — upon the phonological and semantic features of Homeric verse. A circle dance is a locus of conjuration and chanted noun-and-epithet phrases, delimited metrically by the turning points of the dance, become uniquely evocative ‘choral signifiers’. Paolo Vivante’s aesthetic theory of these phrases thereby receives a grounding in attested performance practice, although ‘choral theory’ is required to account for both the poetics and the aesthetics of Homeric verse. The effects of a non-linguistic dance rhythm upon Homeric and Hesiodic phonology, morphology, and diction are discussed. It is shown that ‘poetic license’ is a necessary component in an honest analysis of epic usage. Gregory Nagy’s derivation of the hexameter from smaller, later lyric metrical segments is critiqued in light of Pierre Chantraine’s observation that the Greek language is demonstrably maladapted to the hexameter, as is not the case with lyric metres. The choral signifier cannot be reduced to a purely linguistic phenomenon.
Llewelyn Morgan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199554188
- eISBN:
- 9780191594991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554188.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter investigates the ethos embodied by the hendecasyllable, a favourite metre of the Flavian authors Statius and Martial. Starting from one of Statius' most ambitious hendecasyllabic poems, ...
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This chapter investigates the ethos embodied by the hendecasyllable, a favourite metre of the Flavian authors Statius and Martial. Starting from one of Statius' most ambitious hendecasyllabic poems, Silvae 4.3 on the Via Domitiana, it shows that the hendecasyllable was perceived to embody the character of its most celebrated exponent, Catullus, and that the account of the Via Domitiana comes vividly to life when the Catullan quality imparted by the metre is allowed to assert itself. Other aspects of the metre are then considered, especially the polar relationship operative between it and the dactylic hexameter, and its particular aptness for poetic accounts of diminutive topics. Suggestions are made about the character of the metre as it had been encountered by Catullus. These insights are then fed back into a concluding analysis of the metrical dimension of another arresting deployment of hendecasyllables by Statius, the celebration-cum-lament on Lucan's birthday at Silvae 2.7.Less
This chapter investigates the ethos embodied by the hendecasyllable, a favourite metre of the Flavian authors Statius and Martial. Starting from one of Statius' most ambitious hendecasyllabic poems, Silvae 4.3 on the Via Domitiana, it shows that the hendecasyllable was perceived to embody the character of its most celebrated exponent, Catullus, and that the account of the Via Domitiana comes vividly to life when the Catullan quality imparted by the metre is allowed to assert itself. Other aspects of the metre are then considered, especially the polar relationship operative between it and the dactylic hexameter, and its particular aptness for poetic accounts of diminutive topics. Suggestions are made about the character of the metre as it had been encountered by Catullus. These insights are then fed back into a concluding analysis of the metrical dimension of another arresting deployment of hendecasyllables by Statius, the celebration-cum-lament on Lucan's birthday at Silvae 2.7.
Llewelyn Morgan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199554188
- eISBN:
- 9780191594991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554188.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter focuses on the benchmark metre in ancient poetry, the heroic hexameter. Three poetic forms embodying a contradiction of the epic ethos embodied by the hexameter are considered: ...
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This chapter focuses on the benchmark metre in ancient poetry, the heroic hexameter. Three poetic forms embodying a contradiction of the epic ethos embodied by the hexameter are considered: saturnians, satirical hexameters, and elegiacs. Saturnians, the celebratory medium displaced by hexameters by Ennius, are probed for their capacity to convey resistance to the hellenization represented by hexameters, and similar implications attach to Lucilius' decision to adopt the hexameter as the default form for satire, but a hexameter which is a travesty of the magnificent vehicle of epic: later satirists offer interesting twists to this combative relationship with their own form. Finally, elegy has an ambivalent relationship with epic hard-wired into it by the uneasy combination of a dactylic hexameter and pentameter in the elegiac couplet, and poetry by a range of elegiac poets is used to show the creative potential of this metrical combination.Less
This chapter focuses on the benchmark metre in ancient poetry, the heroic hexameter. Three poetic forms embodying a contradiction of the epic ethos embodied by the hexameter are considered: saturnians, satirical hexameters, and elegiacs. Saturnians, the celebratory medium displaced by hexameters by Ennius, are probed for their capacity to convey resistance to the hellenization represented by hexameters, and similar implications attach to Lucilius' decision to adopt the hexameter as the default form for satire, but a hexameter which is a travesty of the magnificent vehicle of epic: later satirists offer interesting twists to this combative relationship with their own form. Finally, elegy has an ambivalent relationship with epic hard-wired into it by the uneasy combination of a dactylic hexameter and pentameter in the elegiac couplet, and poetry by a range of elegiac poets is used to show the creative potential of this metrical combination.
M. L. Gasparov
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158790
- eISBN:
- 9780191673368
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158790.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, European Literature
This chapter discusses the quantitative metre which was formed in the Greek language between 1000 and 750 BC. The chapter aims to measure short syllables. It also describes in detail the quantitative ...
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This chapter discusses the quantitative metre which was formed in the Greek language between 1000 and 750 BC. The chapter aims to measure short syllables. It also describes in detail the quantitative versification of classical antiquity, having three primary and two secondary measures. The primary measures were dactylic hexameter, trochaic tetrameter, and iambic trimeter. The secondary or auxiliary measures were dactylic pentameter and iambic dimeter.Less
This chapter discusses the quantitative metre which was formed in the Greek language between 1000 and 750 BC. The chapter aims to measure short syllables. It also describes in detail the quantitative versification of classical antiquity, having three primary and two secondary measures. The primary measures were dactylic hexameter, trochaic tetrameter, and iambic trimeter. The secondary or auxiliary measures were dactylic pentameter and iambic dimeter.
R. Scott Garner
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199757923
- eISBN:
- 9780199895281
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199757923.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
After summarizing the evidence for the oral performance of early Greek poetry in general, Chapter 1 represents an initial investigation into the possibilities that existed for the employment of ...
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After summarizing the evidence for the oral performance of early Greek poetry in general, Chapter 1 represents an initial investigation into the possibilities that existed for the employment of traditional and formulaic phraseology within archaic elegy. Within Homeric epic, oral‐formulaic phraseology existed in symbiosis with a flexible partitioning system in which each stichic hexameter was separable into four recognizable units (or cola) which could then be combined to produce composite verses consisting of regularized and traditional content. In the hexameter portion of early elegiac couplets, this same four‐part division can also be observed, while the so‐called pentameter line within each couplet also regularly divides into four integral units. In the end analysis, it is clear that archaic Greek elegy possessed a metrical partitioning scheme that would have allowed for the possibility of employing formulaic phraseology.Less
After summarizing the evidence for the oral performance of early Greek poetry in general, Chapter 1 represents an initial investigation into the possibilities that existed for the employment of traditional and formulaic phraseology within archaic elegy. Within Homeric epic, oral‐formulaic phraseology existed in symbiosis with a flexible partitioning system in which each stichic hexameter was separable into four recognizable units (or cola) which could then be combined to produce composite verses consisting of regularized and traditional content. In the hexameter portion of early elegiac couplets, this same four‐part division can also be observed, while the so‐called pentameter line within each couplet also regularly divides into four integral units. In the end analysis, it is clear that archaic Greek elegy possessed a metrical partitioning scheme that would have allowed for the possibility of employing formulaic phraseology.
L. P. E. Parker
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199285686
- eISBN:
- 9780191713958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199285686.003.0020
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The formulaic language of the early hexameter poets grew up over time designed to produce good hexameters, verses that sounded agreeable. A poet composing with these preformed blocks would be ...
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The formulaic language of the early hexameter poets grew up over time designed to produce good hexameters, verses that sounded agreeable. A poet composing with these preformed blocks would be unlikely to strive after special effects. Yet the temptation to detect deliberate onomatopoeia in 598 is strong. Dionysius subjects the verse to close scrutiny in order to define how the rhythmic effect that he feels has been produced. He observes that there are no monosyllables and only two disyllables. No long vowel or diphthong is followed by more than one consonant, and pairs of consonants appear only where needed to ‘make position’ following a short vowel. In fact, to his way of thinking, all the syllables are as short as possible. Then, the words are nowhere ‘forced apart’ by (apparent) hiatus, or final semivowel meeting initial semivowel. But finally, and ‘most surprising of all’, all the ‘feet’, except the last, are dactylic. This chapter argues that unlike most ancient theorists, Dionysius shows himself genuinely interested in the sound of verse, but his surprise here does no credit to the sensitivity of his ear. Nearly one fifth of Homeric hexameters are holodactylic. Moreover, he failed to notice one really remarkable fact about the verse in question: all the bicipitia except one are split by word-end.Less
The formulaic language of the early hexameter poets grew up over time designed to produce good hexameters, verses that sounded agreeable. A poet composing with these preformed blocks would be unlikely to strive after special effects. Yet the temptation to detect deliberate onomatopoeia in 598 is strong. Dionysius subjects the verse to close scrutiny in order to define how the rhythmic effect that he feels has been produced. He observes that there are no monosyllables and only two disyllables. No long vowel or diphthong is followed by more than one consonant, and pairs of consonants appear only where needed to ‘make position’ following a short vowel. In fact, to his way of thinking, all the syllables are as short as possible. Then, the words are nowhere ‘forced apart’ by (apparent) hiatus, or final semivowel meeting initial semivowel. But finally, and ‘most surprising of all’, all the ‘feet’, except the last, are dactylic. This chapter argues that unlike most ancient theorists, Dionysius shows himself genuinely interested in the sound of verse, but his surprise here does no credit to the sensitivity of his ear. Nearly one fifth of Homeric hexameters are holodactylic. Moreover, he failed to notice one really remarkable fact about the verse in question: all the bicipitia except one are split by word-end.
Sophie Marianne Bocksberger
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780198864769
- eISBN:
- 9780191896804
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198864769.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This monograph provides a complete overview of the development of Telamonian Ajax’s myth in archaic and classical Greece. It is a systematic study of the representations of the hero in all kinds of ...
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This monograph provides a complete overview of the development of Telamonian Ajax’s myth in archaic and classical Greece. It is a systematic study of the representations of the hero in all kinds of media, such as literature, art, or cultic practice. It establishes how and why the constitutive elements of Ajax’s myth evolved by examining the way the literary works and visual representations in which he features were influenced by the historical, socio-cultural, and performative contexts of their receptions. The political valence and religious dimension of the hero as well as the audience for which each work was produced are consistently taken into account. The study focuses on three main loci of reception: (1) the Panhellenic figure of Ajax, through a study of early Greek hexameter poetry and archaic art, (2) archaic and classical Aegina, and (3) archaic and classical Athens. By following in the footsteps of Ajax, this study offers a journey across the archaic and classical history of the Saronic Gulf, and exemplifies the manner in which the respective priorities of art, cult, and politics could be negotiated through the re-configuration of mythological figures.Less
This monograph provides a complete overview of the development of Telamonian Ajax’s myth in archaic and classical Greece. It is a systematic study of the representations of the hero in all kinds of media, such as literature, art, or cultic practice. It establishes how and why the constitutive elements of Ajax’s myth evolved by examining the way the literary works and visual representations in which he features were influenced by the historical, socio-cultural, and performative contexts of their receptions. The political valence and religious dimension of the hero as well as the audience for which each work was produced are consistently taken into account. The study focuses on three main loci of reception: (1) the Panhellenic figure of Ajax, through a study of early Greek hexameter poetry and archaic art, (2) archaic and classical Aegina, and (3) archaic and classical Athens. By following in the footsteps of Ajax, this study offers a journey across the archaic and classical history of the Saronic Gulf, and exemplifies the manner in which the respective priorities of art, cult, and politics could be negotiated through the re-configuration of mythological figures.
Christopher Athanasious Faraone
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- November 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197552971
- eISBN:
- 9780197553008
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197552971.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book focuses on the evidence for short, non-epic hexametrical genres as a way of gaining new insights into the variety of their often ritual performance and their early history. It also shows ...
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This book focuses on the evidence for short, non-epic hexametrical genres as a way of gaining new insights into the variety of their often ritual performance and their early history. It also shows how poets from Homer to Theocritus embedded or imitated these genres to enrich their own poems, by playing with and sometimes overturning the generic expectations of their audiences or readers. In doing so the book combines literary and ritual studies to produce a rich and detailed picture of a number of genres performed in sanctuaries, such as hymns and laments for Adonis, or in other spaces likewise dedicated to traditional speech-acts, such as epithalamia, oracles, or incantations. It deals primarily with the recovery of a number of lost or underappreciated hexametrical genres, which are usually left out of modern taxonomies of archaic hexametrical poetry, either because they survive only in fragments or because the earliest evidence for them dates to the classical period and beyond. Of central importance will be the surviving hexametrical poets, especially those of archaic and Hellenistic date, who embed or imitate traditional hexametrical genres of shorter duration either to give a recognizable internal structure to a shorter poem or to an episode or speech within a longer one.Less
This book focuses on the evidence for short, non-epic hexametrical genres as a way of gaining new insights into the variety of their often ritual performance and their early history. It also shows how poets from Homer to Theocritus embedded or imitated these genres to enrich their own poems, by playing with and sometimes overturning the generic expectations of their audiences or readers. In doing so the book combines literary and ritual studies to produce a rich and detailed picture of a number of genres performed in sanctuaries, such as hymns and laments for Adonis, or in other spaces likewise dedicated to traditional speech-acts, such as epithalamia, oracles, or incantations. It deals primarily with the recovery of a number of lost or underappreciated hexametrical genres, which are usually left out of modern taxonomies of archaic hexametrical poetry, either because they survive only in fragments or because the earliest evidence for them dates to the classical period and beyond. Of central importance will be the surviving hexametrical poets, especially those of archaic and Hellenistic date, who embed or imitate traditional hexametrical genres of shorter duration either to give a recognizable internal structure to a shorter poem or to an episode or speech within a longer one.
D. E. Hill and D. E. Hill
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780856687334
- eISBN:
- 9781800343153
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9780856687334.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter focuses on Ovid's Book XIII—XV of Metamorphoses, which is a long narrative poem in the form of a highly idiosyncratic history of the world from Creation to the death and deification of ...
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This chapter focuses on Ovid's Book XIII—XV of Metamorphoses, which is a long narrative poem in the form of a highly idiosyncratic history of the world from Creation to the death and deification of Julius Caesar. It describes the revelation of ultimate truth about the victim as the recurrent motif of metamorphosis. It also mentions the mediaeval writers who treated the poems in Metamorpheses as a storehouse of paradigms for moral instruction. The chapter explains how Ovid turned to the dactylic hexameter to produce a mythological tour de force of epic scale in his Metamorphoses that wholly transcended anything he had produced before. It explores the strong moral and humane theme throughout the Metamorphoses as one of the most popular of classical works during the Middle Ages.Less
This chapter focuses on Ovid's Book XIII—XV of Metamorphoses, which is a long narrative poem in the form of a highly idiosyncratic history of the world from Creation to the death and deification of Julius Caesar. It describes the revelation of ultimate truth about the victim as the recurrent motif of metamorphosis. It also mentions the mediaeval writers who treated the poems in Metamorpheses as a storehouse of paradigms for moral instruction. The chapter explains how Ovid turned to the dactylic hexameter to produce a mythological tour de force of epic scale in his Metamorphoses that wholly transcended anything he had produced before. It explores the strong moral and humane theme throughout the Metamorphoses as one of the most popular of classical works during the Middle Ages.
Prudentius
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801442223
- eISBN:
- 9780801463051
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801442223.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter focuses on the structure of the Hamartigenia. The poem appears in the manuscripts under a Greek title and features a preface written in a different meter—iambic preface followed by a ...
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This chapter focuses on the structure of the Hamartigenia. The poem appears in the manuscripts under a Greek title and features a preface written in a different meter—iambic preface followed by a hexameter poem—from that of the poem itself. The main topic of the poem is the origin of sin in the universe and its consequences; it is framed as a refutation of the heresy of Marcion of Sinope, a second-century-CE thinker who preached a dualistic theology. The poem proper begins with an apostrophe to Cain, who was castigated as a “divider of God” and accused of having double vision. The chapter further addresses how the poem illustrates the effects of sin on the universe, the central concept of free will, and the like.Less
This chapter focuses on the structure of the Hamartigenia. The poem appears in the manuscripts under a Greek title and features a preface written in a different meter—iambic preface followed by a hexameter poem—from that of the poem itself. The main topic of the poem is the origin of sin in the universe and its consequences; it is framed as a refutation of the heresy of Marcion of Sinope, a second-century-CE thinker who preached a dualistic theology. The poem proper begins with an apostrophe to Cain, who was castigated as a “divider of God” and accused of having double vision. The chapter further addresses how the poem illustrates the effects of sin on the universe, the central concept of free will, and the like.
Christopher Athanasious Faraone
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- November 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197552971
- eISBN:
- 9780197553008
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197552971.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Reviews the basic argument of the book that there existed in ancient Greece a number of short genres of hexametrical poetry, most of them performed in ritual contexts, for example, hymn, oracle, ...
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Reviews the basic argument of the book that there existed in ancient Greece a number of short genres of hexametrical poetry, most of them performed in ritual contexts, for example, hymn, oracle, incantation and lament, whose history can be traced to a large degree in how they are embedded in Homeric and (to a lesser degree) Hesiodic poetry, how they are imitated by Hellenistic poets and how they are reflected in other ways in the parodies of comedy and in the survivals of other kinds of texts on papyrus, metal and stone.Less
Reviews the basic argument of the book that there existed in ancient Greece a number of short genres of hexametrical poetry, most of them performed in ritual contexts, for example, hymn, oracle, incantation and lament, whose history can be traced to a large degree in how they are embedded in Homeric and (to a lesser degree) Hesiodic poetry, how they are imitated by Hellenistic poets and how they are reflected in other ways in the parodies of comedy and in the survivals of other kinds of texts on papyrus, metal and stone.
Derek Attridge
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198833154
- eISBN:
- 9780191873898
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198833154.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Some of the so-called Homeric Hymns, dating from the seventh century bc, provide evidence of poetic performance at festivals in Greece. Alongside the sung hexameter epics, two other verse traditions ...
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Some of the so-called Homeric Hymns, dating from the seventh century bc, provide evidence of poetic performance at festivals in Greece. Alongside the sung hexameter epics, two other verse traditions appear to have been recited without music: iambics and elegiacs, both of which were used in public performances. We hear of a new kind of recited performance in the sixth century, that of the rhapsode, the fullest account of which (admittedly from a hostile perspective) is that given by Plato in the Ion. This chapter discusses the figure of the rhapsode, and the significance of a performance tradition in which a fixed text is used, perhaps with the aid of a written script. The chapter ends with a consideration of Plato’s hostility to poetry and Aristotle’s response to his arguments.Less
Some of the so-called Homeric Hymns, dating from the seventh century bc, provide evidence of poetic performance at festivals in Greece. Alongside the sung hexameter epics, two other verse traditions appear to have been recited without music: iambics and elegiacs, both of which were used in public performances. We hear of a new kind of recited performance in the sixth century, that of the rhapsode, the fullest account of which (admittedly from a hostile perspective) is that given by Plato in the Ion. This chapter discusses the figure of the rhapsode, and the significance of a performance tradition in which a fixed text is used, perhaps with the aid of a written script. The chapter ends with a consideration of Plato’s hostility to poetry and Aristotle’s response to his arguments.
G. O. Hutchinson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199670703
- eISBN:
- 9780191757020
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199670703.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Hexameter should be recognized as a super-genre, which is not the same as calling all hexameter poetry ‘epic’. The genres within the super-genre differ greatly in their grounds; these are derived ...
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Hexameter should be recognized as a super-genre, which is not the same as calling all hexameter poetry ‘epic’. The genres within the super-genre differ greatly in their grounds; these are derived from Greek poetry, and Latin and Greek are compared. The basic ground of narrative hexameter poetry is typically an account of the past addressed to no one, and marked by ironic knowledge; it typically contrasts with the inset grounds of speeches, marked by emotion. The basic ground of didactic poetry is an account of things which obtain generally, addressed to a pupil; there are few other characters. Latin and Greek are here close in phrasing. Pastoral, especially in Latin, minimizes narrative, and emphasizes fictional speech and song. Satire emphasizes a first-person narrator, but has considerable connections with Theocritus and pastoral in ground. Occasional and inscriptional poetry is also discussed.Less
Hexameter should be recognized as a super-genre, which is not the same as calling all hexameter poetry ‘epic’. The genres within the super-genre differ greatly in their grounds; these are derived from Greek poetry, and Latin and Greek are compared. The basic ground of narrative hexameter poetry is typically an account of the past addressed to no one, and marked by ironic knowledge; it typically contrasts with the inset grounds of speeches, marked by emotion. The basic ground of didactic poetry is an account of things which obtain generally, addressed to a pupil; there are few other characters. Latin and Greek are here close in phrasing. Pastoral, especially in Latin, minimizes narrative, and emphasizes fictional speech and song. Satire emphasizes a first-person narrator, but has considerable connections with Theocritus and pastoral in ground. Occasional and inscriptional poetry is also discussed.
G. O. Hutchinson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199670703
- eISBN:
- 9780191757020
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199670703.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The two types of narrative hexameter poetry — on Greek myth and Roman history — stand at a different distance from Greek poetry; and even within the type on Greek myth there are different distances ...
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The two types of narrative hexameter poetry — on Greek myth and Roman history — stand at a different distance from Greek poetry; and even within the type on Greek myth there are different distances from Greek models. The various subjects of didactic poetry, intrinsically general, are localized to different degrees, and involve different degrees of proximity to Greek poetic models; Greek prose is also important. Pastoral uses names to bring a Greek world into different places. Placing and proximity to Greek are connected but Calpurnius makes considerable use of non-bucolic Theocritus. Satire is less separate from the lower kinds of Greek hexameter poetry than might appear. Theocritus is again important, as is the Italian country. Occasional poetry is connected with Greek occasional hexameters, but has a different spatial focus. Greek and Latin inscriptional poetry come together particularly at Rome.Less
The two types of narrative hexameter poetry — on Greek myth and Roman history — stand at a different distance from Greek poetry; and even within the type on Greek myth there are different distances from Greek models. The various subjects of didactic poetry, intrinsically general, are localized to different degrees, and involve different degrees of proximity to Greek poetic models; Greek prose is also important. Pastoral uses names to bring a Greek world into different places. Placing and proximity to Greek are connected but Calpurnius makes considerable use of non-bucolic Theocritus. Satire is less separate from the lower kinds of Greek hexameter poetry than might appear. Theocritus is again important, as is the Italian country. Occasional poetry is connected with Greek occasional hexameters, but has a different spatial focus. Greek and Latin inscriptional poetry come together particularly at Rome.
Caley Ehnes
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474418348
- eISBN:
- 9781474459655
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474418348.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter turns its attention to the shilling monthly as represented by the originators of the genre: Macmillan’sMagazine and the Cornhill. These periodicals represent a particular moment in ...
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This chapter turns its attention to the shilling monthly as represented by the originators of the genre: Macmillan’sMagazine and the Cornhill. These periodicals represent a particular moment in literary history in which the shilling monthly explicitly functioned to reinforce and define middle-class cultural tastes and traditions. This chapter thus considers how the editors of Macmillan’s and the Cornhill used poetry to support the cultural and literary aims of their respective periodicals, shaping the poetic landscape of the 1860s through their editorial decisions (e.g. each periodical took a side in the era’s debate over hexameters). The first third of the chapter traces Alexander Macmillan’s influence on the poetry of Macmillan’s through the work of Alfred Tennyson, Dinah Mulock Craik, and Christina Rossetti. The remainder of the chapter focuses on William Thackeray’s role as paterfamilias of the Cornhill through an examination of poems by Matthew Arnold, Adelaide Anne Procter, Owen Meredith, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (among others).Less
This chapter turns its attention to the shilling monthly as represented by the originators of the genre: Macmillan’sMagazine and the Cornhill. These periodicals represent a particular moment in literary history in which the shilling monthly explicitly functioned to reinforce and define middle-class cultural tastes and traditions. This chapter thus considers how the editors of Macmillan’s and the Cornhill used poetry to support the cultural and literary aims of their respective periodicals, shaping the poetic landscape of the 1860s through their editorial decisions (e.g. each periodical took a side in the era’s debate over hexameters). The first third of the chapter traces Alexander Macmillan’s influence on the poetry of Macmillan’s through the work of Alfred Tennyson, Dinah Mulock Craik, and Christina Rossetti. The remainder of the chapter focuses on William Thackeray’s role as paterfamilias of the Cornhill through an examination of poems by Matthew Arnold, Adelaide Anne Procter, Owen Meredith, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (among others).