Search Results

The Hidden Chorus: Echoes of Genre in Tragic Lyric

L. A. Swift

Choral performance permeated Greek life on every level, from private weddings and funerals to large‐scale religious festivals, yet the relationship between these ritual choruses and the better known ... More

Choral performance permeated Greek life on every level, from private weddings and funerals to large‐scale religious festivals, yet the relationship between these ritual choruses and the better known choruses of tragedy has never been systematically examined. This book represents the first detailed study of the interaction between tragic and lyric choral song. It aims to enrich our understanding of the socio‐cultural position of both tragedy and lyric poetry, exploring the roles that these types of song played within the ritual life of the community. Thus through the connections between tragic and non‐tragic lyric, we not only gain insights into individual plays but also develop a broader understanding of the musical culture of the Greek polis. The first two chapters deal with methodological groundwork, exploring theoretical approaches to genre, and investigating lyric performance in fifth‐century Athens. The bulk of the book consists of detailed discussions of five lyric genres, with chapters on paian, epinikion, partheneia, hymenaios, and Thrēnos. Each chapter includes a discussion of the genre in question, an overview of its use in tragedy, and detailed case‐studies of two or three plays where the lyric references are particularly rich and complex. An appendix to the book contains a comprehensive list of generic interaction in Greek tragedy, with a brief guide to how these references can be identified.Less

Pindaric Metre: The ‘Other Half’

Kiichiro Itsumi

This book describes the metrical features of the twenty-two Pindaric epinikia which are not composed in dactylo-epitrite (‘the other half’). These odes are puzzling, and scholars currently assume, ... More

This book describes the metrical features of the twenty-two Pindaric epinikia which are not composed in dactylo-epitrite (‘the other half’). These odes are puzzling, and scholars currently assume, without detailed examination, that they are all composed in a single type of metre which is often called ‘aeolic’. The book argues that there are in fact two types of metre (Pindaric epinikia are not as polymetric as the odes of tragedy), and divides the metrical styles of the stanza-forms of the ‘other half’ into three groups, according to the way in which these two metres are knitted together. This is the main theme of Part I. Part II consists of metrical commentaries. The structure of each stanza-form is analysed and compared with others, and abundant metrical parallels are provided, both for the individual verses and for the stanza-form as a whole. In a few passages textual problems are also discussed, for metrical study is in part an auxiliary discipline of textual criticism. In particular, metrical understanding is essential when one has to judge whether or not exact responsion may be broken in a particular metrical position. In an Appendix to this Part, the metrical features of the major fragments (most of which are Paeans) and their characteristics are also described. With its clear identification of a series of precise entities from which Pindar's verses are made, the book's study as a whole imposes a new clarity and discipline on what had previously seemed a much vaguer process.Less

The Dance of the Muses: Choral Theory and Ancient Greek Poetics

A. P. David

This book develops an authentic and revolutionary musical analysis of ancient Greek poetry. It brings the interpretation of ancient verse into step with the sorts of analyses customarily enjoyed by ... More

This book develops an authentic and revolutionary musical analysis of ancient Greek poetry. It brings the interpretation of ancient verse into step with the sorts of analyses customarily enjoyed by works in all the more recent poetical and musical traditions. It departs from the abstract metrical analyses of the past in that it conceives the rhythmic and harmonic elements of poetry as integral to the whole expression, and decisive in the interpretation of its meaning. Such an analysis is now possible because of a new theory of the Greek tonic accent, set out in the third chapter, and its application to Greek poetry understood as choreia — the proper name for the art and work of ancient poets in both epic and lyric, described by Plato as a synthesis of dance rhythm and vocal harmony, in disagreement moving toward agreement. The book offers a thorough-going treatment of Homeric poetics: here some remarkable discoveries in the harmonic movement of epic verse, when combined with some neglected facts about the origin of the hexameter in a ‘dance of the Muses’, lead to essential new thinking about the genesis and the form of Homeric poetry. The book also gives a foretaste of the fruits to be harvested in lyric by a musical analysis, applying the new theory of the accent and considering concretely the role of dance in performance.Less

Greek Lyric, Tragedy, and Textual Criticism: Collected Papers

W. S. Barrett

M. L. West (ed.)

W. S. Barrett (1914-2001) was one of the finest Hellenists of the second half of the 20th century, known above all for his celebrated edition of Euripides' Hippolytus. This volume of his collected ... More

W. S. Barrett (1914-2001) was one of the finest Hellenists of the second half of the 20th century, known above all for his celebrated edition of Euripides' Hippolytus. This volume of his collected scholarly papers includes five articles published between 1954 and 1978, together with a much larger number of others that remained unpublished in his lifetime and are presented here for the first time. They deal mainly with Greek lyric poetry (Stesichoros, Pindar, Bacchylides) and Tragedy.Less

Aristotle as Poet: The Song for Hermias and Its Contexts

Andrew L. Ford

This book studies Aristotle’s poetic activity in light of an ode he composed commemorating Hermias of Atarneus, his father in law and patron in the 340’s BCE. This remarkable text is said to have ... More

This book studies Aristotle’s poetic activity in light of an ode he composed commemorating Hermias of Atarneus, his father in law and patron in the 340’s BCE. This remarkable text is said to have later embroiled the philosopher in charges of impiety and so is studied both from a literary perspective and as a window onto the poetic practices of the later fourth century. Aristotle’s literary antecedents are studied with an unprecedented fullness that considers the entire range of the literary tradition, including poems by Sappho, Pindar, and Sophocles, and prose texts as well. Particular attention is paid to understanding the ancient report that political opponents of Aristotle charged him with impiety on the grounds that his song was actually a hymn to Hermias that implied the latter had become a god. Aristotle’s song affords a case study in how Greek poetic texts functioned as performance pieces and how they were recorded, circulated, and preserved. The book argues that Greek lyric poems profit from being read as scripts for performances that both shaped and were shaped by the social occasions in which they were performed. Studying the lyric in light of the history of its interpretation leads to a more fine-tuned appreciation for its literary dynamics and provides a window onto the literary culture of the late classical age.Less

Lyrics of Life: Sa'di on Love, Cosmopolitanism and Care of the Self

Fatemeh Keshavarz

Lyrics of Life: Sa’di on Love, Cosmopolitanism, and care of the Self is an accessible study of the lyrical, humorous, and social and education aspects of classical Persian poetry through the ghazals ... More

Lyrics of Life: Sa’di on Love, Cosmopolitanism, and care of the Self is an accessible study of the lyrical, humorous, and social and education aspects of classical Persian poetry through the ghazals of Sa’di of Shiraz (d.1291) the poet, traveller, and ethicist. In six chapters and on epilogue, the author focuses on Sa’di’s worldly wisdom, his cosmopolitan perspectives, his sense of humour, his ethical legacy, and the lyrical quality that has made his work immune to the ravishes of time. The study provides hundreds of verses in English translation in order to enable the reader to experience Sa’di’s poetic art first hand. The discussions emphasize the relation between this poetry and lived experience, the central communicative role of poetry in the medieval Muslim world and the elegance of the poetic language as a social tool for ethical and political education. At the same time, it describes, in fine details, the lyrical strategies that the poet used in order to keep his poetry fresh, lyrical, humorous and entertaining.Less

Voicing the Soviet Experience: The Poetry of Ol′ga Berggol′ts

Katharine Hodgson

This book is an examination of a poet whose career offers a case study in the complexities facing Soviet writers in the Stalin era. Ol′ga Berggol′ts (1910–1975) was a prominent Russian Soviet poet, ... More

This book is an examination of a poet whose career offers a case study in the complexities facing Soviet writers in the Stalin era. Ol′ga Berggol′ts (1910–1975) was a prominent Russian Soviet poet, whose accounts of heroism in wartime Leningrad brought her fame. This book addresses her position as a writer whose Party loyalties were frequently in conflict with the demands of artistic and personal integrity. Writers who pursued their careers under the restrictions of the Stalin era have been categorized as ‘official’ figures whose work is assumed to be drab, inept and opportunistic; but such assumptions impose a uniformity on the work of Soviet writers that the censors and the Writers Union could not achieve. An exploration of Berggol′ts's work shows that the borders between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ literature were in fact permeable and shifting. This book draws on unpublished sources such as diaries and notebooks to reveal the range and scope of her work, and to show how conflict and ambiguity functioned as a creative structuring principle. The text discusses how Berggol′ts's lyric poetry constructs the subject from multiple, conflicting discourses, and examines the poet's treatment of genres such as narrative verse, verse tragedy and prose in the changing cultural context of the 1950s. Berggol′ts's use of inter-textual, and especially intra-textual, reference is also investigated; the intensively self-referential nature of her work creates a web of allusion that connects texts of different genres, ‘official’ as well as ‘unofficial’ writing.Less

Denise Levertov: A Poet's Life

Dana Greene

Kenneth Rexroth called Denise Levertov (1923–1997) “the most subtly skillful poet of her generation, the most profound, ... and the most moving.” Author of twenty-four volumes of poetry, four books ... More

Kenneth Rexroth called Denise Levertov (1923–1997) “the most subtly skillful poet of her generation, the most profound, ... and the most moving.” Author of twenty-four volumes of poetry, four books of essays, and several translations, Levertov became a lauded and honored poet. Born in England, she published her first book of poems at age twenty-three, but it was not until she married and came to the United States in 1948 that she found her poetic voice, helped by the likes of William Carlos Williams, Robert Duncan, and Robert Creeley. Shortly before her death in 1997, the woman who claimed no country as home was nominated to be America's poet laureate. This book examines Levertov's interviews, essays, and self-revelatory poetry to discern the conflict and torment she both endured and created in her attempts to deal with her own psyche, her relationships with family, friends, lovers, colleagues, and the times in which she lived. This book is the first complete biography of Levertov, a woman who claimed she did not want a biography, insisting that it was her work that she hoped would endure. And yet she confessed that her poetry in its various forms—lyric, political, natural, and religious—derived from her life experience. Although a substantial body of criticism has established Levertov as a major poet of the later twentieth century, the book represents the first attempt to set her poetry within the framework of her often tumultuous life.Less

Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry: Myth, History, and Identity in the Fifth Century BC

David Fearn (ed.)

Situated in the centre of the Saronic Gulf, the island of Aegina has long been recognized as a powerful force in the cultural, political, economic, and strategic history of fifth-century Greece. The ... More

Situated in the centre of the Saronic Gulf, the island of Aegina has long been recognized as a powerful force in the cultural, political, economic, and strategic history of fifth-century Greece. The island is well known as the original home of the magnificent Doric architecture and sculpture of the Temple of Aphaia and of many of the patrons of the epinician poets Pindar and Bacchylides; with a thriving maritime economy and an effective navy, Aegina was powerful enough to challenge the security and ambitions of its neighbour Athens, by whom it was reduced to a kleruchy at the start of the Peloponnesian War. Many of the fascinating aspects of the island within the history and culture of fifth-century Greece have, however, been studied separately, rendering a rounded view of the significance of the island, and the significance of the island's choral lyric poetry, difficult. This volume aims to redress the balance by suggesting ways in which the different aspects of the island's make-up can fruitfully be explored together. Eleven chapters by established and younger scholars examine different aspects of the island's nature, and factors which link them: mythological genealogies, economics, cult song, religion, athletics, epinician poetry, inter-state networking, aristocratic politics and culture, art history, and the views of the island offered by classical historiography. The interdisciplinary nature of the volume aims to provide new insights into the diversity and significance of classical Greek history and culture, as well as being suggestive for future research on the cultural and political diversity of classical Greece.Less

Text World Theory: An Introduction

Joanna Gavins

Text World Theory is a cognitive model of all human discourse processing. This introductory textbook sets out a usable framework for understanding mental representations. Text World Theory is ... More

Text World Theory is a cognitive model of all human discourse processing. This introductory textbook sets out a usable framework for understanding mental representations. Text World Theory is explained using naturally occurring texts and real situations, including literary works, advertising discourse, the language of lonely hearts, horoscopes, route directions, cookery books and song lyrics. The book will therefore allow its readers to make practical use of the text-world framework in a wide range of linguistic and literary contexts.Less

Lyric Orientations: Hölderlin, Rilke, and the Poetics of Community

Hannah Vandegrift Eldridge

This book explores the power of lyric poetry to stir the social and emotional lives of human beings in the face of the ineffable nature of our mortality. It focuses on two German-speaking masters of ... More

This book explores the power of lyric poetry to stir the social and emotional lives of human beings in the face of the ineffable nature of our mortality. It focuses on two German-speaking masters of lyric prose and poetry: Friedrich Hölderlin (1770—1843) and Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926). While Hölderlin and Rilke are stylistically very different, each believed in the power of poetic language to orient us as social beings in contexts that otherwise can be alienating. They shared the conviction that such alienation cannot be overcome once and for all in any universal event. Both argued that to deny the uncertainty created by the absence of any such event (or to deny the alienation itself) is to deny the particularly human condition of uncertainty and mortality. By drawing on the work of Stanley Cavell, the book challenges poststructuralist scholarship, which stresses the limitations of language in the face of reality. The book provides detailed readings of Hölderlin and Rilke and positions them in a broader narrative of modernity that helps make sense of their difficult and occasionally contradictory self-characterizations. The book reconciles the ambitious claims that Hölderlin and Rilke make for poetry—that it can create political communities, that it can change how humans relate to death, and that it can unite the sensual and intellectual components of human subjectivity—and the often difficult, fragmented, or hermetic nature of their individual poems.Less