L. A. Swift
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199577842
- eISBN:
- 9780191722622
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577842.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
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 ...
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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
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.
Kiichiro Itsumi
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199229611
- eISBN:
- 9780191710780
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199229611.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
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, ...
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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
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.
A. P. David
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199292400
- eISBN:
- 9780191711855
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199292400.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
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 ...
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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
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.
W. S. Barrett
M. L. West (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199203574
- eISBN:
- 9780191708183
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203574.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
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 ...
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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
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.
Alice Fox
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129882
- eISBN:
- 9780191671876
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129882.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book examines the profound effect, on a major critic and novelist of the twentieth century, of the period of English literature's greatest glory, the Renaissance. Beginning in the sixteenth ...
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This book examines the profound effect, on a major critic and novelist of the twentieth century, of the period of English literature's greatest glory, the Renaissance. Beginning in the sixteenth century, with the poems and plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and with prose writings such as Hakluyt's Voyages, and continuing through the great lyric poets of the seventeenth century, the Renaissance influenced every aspect of Virginia Woolf's work. All her available writing – letters, diaries, reading notes, drafts of essays, novels, and feminist polemic – are explored in this study of Virginia Woolf's varied reactions to the period, and its impact on her fiction and criticism. Each of the novels, in particular, is shown to integrate some element of Renaissance literature in its language, characterization, and often structure, enriching the fiction.Less
This book examines the profound effect, on a major critic and novelist of the twentieth century, of the period of English literature's greatest glory, the Renaissance. Beginning in the sixteenth century, with the poems and plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and with prose writings such as Hakluyt's Voyages, and continuing through the great lyric poets of the seventeenth century, the Renaissance influenced every aspect of Virginia Woolf's work. All her available writing – letters, diaries, reading notes, drafts of essays, novels, and feminist polemic – are explored in this study of Virginia Woolf's varied reactions to the period, and its impact on her fiction and criticism. Each of the novels, in particular, is shown to integrate some element of Renaissance literature in its language, characterization, and often structure, enriching the fiction.
DAVID FEARN
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199215508
- eISBN:
- 9780191707018
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199215508.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that classical scholarship has generally sought to evaluate Bacchylides negatively by placing him side by side ...
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This chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that classical scholarship has generally sought to evaluate Bacchylides negatively by placing him side by side with Pindar and aestheticizing the poetry and separating it from the contexts in which it was originally commissioned. It is not that value-judgements on the relative merits of the two poets are impossible, unnecessary, or embarrassing. But it is necessary to bring to light and thus to reframe the social situations in which value judgements relating to poetry and literary canons are made throughout their history, and thus to have an awareness of the background to one's own cultural and theoretical position.Less
This chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that classical scholarship has generally sought to evaluate Bacchylides negatively by placing him side by side with Pindar and aestheticizing the poetry and separating it from the contexts in which it was originally commissioned. It is not that value-judgements on the relative merits of the two poets are impossible, unnecessary, or embarrassing. But it is necessary to bring to light and thus to reframe the social situations in which value judgements relating to poetry and literary canons are made throughout their history, and thus to have an awareness of the background to one's own cultural and theoretical position.
Andrew L. Ford
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199733293
- eISBN:
- 9780199918539
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199733293.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
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 ...
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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
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.
Katharine Hodgson
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262894
- eISBN:
- 9780191734977
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262894.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
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, ...
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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
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.
Walter van de Leur
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195124484
- eISBN:
- 9780199868711
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195124484.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter explores the musical activities of Strayhorn outside the realm of the Ellington Orchestra. Strayhorn composed and arranged extensively for others, and participated in a number of theater ...
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This chapter explores the musical activities of Strayhorn outside the realm of the Ellington Orchestra. Strayhorn composed and arranged extensively for others, and participated in a number of theater projects that never fully materialized. As president of the Copasetics, a group of tap-dance pros, he yearly wrote a full show. Musically these works do not constitute a structural break with his writing for the Ellington orchestra, but they allowed him to free himself from the orchestra’s restrictions. The next section discusses these independent works, including the various Copasetics Shows, music for Federico García Lorca’s surrealist The Love of Don Perlimplín for Belisa in Their Garden, Rose-colored Glasses, and Saturday Laughter. Strayhorn’s theater-works bring up his lyric writing as well.Less
This chapter explores the musical activities of Strayhorn outside the realm of the Ellington Orchestra. Strayhorn composed and arranged extensively for others, and participated in a number of theater projects that never fully materialized. As president of the Copasetics, a group of tap-dance pros, he yearly wrote a full show. Musically these works do not constitute a structural break with his writing for the Ellington orchestra, but they allowed him to free himself from the orchestra’s restrictions. The next section discusses these independent works, including the various Copasetics Shows, music for Federico García Lorca’s surrealist The Love of Don Perlimplín for Belisa in Their Garden, Rose-colored Glasses, and Saturday Laughter. Strayhorn’s theater-works bring up his lyric writing as well.
Fatemeh Keshavarz
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748696925
- eISBN:
- 9781474408608
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748696925.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
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 ...
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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
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.
Rivkah Zim
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161808
- eISBN:
- 9781400852093
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161808.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter demonstrates how Boethius' text established many of the themes and forms that spoke to and for later writers in prison. These include: consolation from the expressive power of ordered ...
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This chapter demonstrates how Boethius' text established many of the themes and forms that spoke to and for later writers in prison. These include: consolation from the expressive power of ordered lyric meters set against the disorder of injustice and suffering in the real world; the importance of a well-stocked mind and imagination in maintaining resistance to oppression; and the expressive potential of paradox in reconciling apparent contraries and celebrating the creativity that may arise under situations of adversity. The text also promoted the subtle simplicity of dialectic and patterns of opposing binaries used to resolve impossible tensions in apparently progressive forms of logical argument and related forms of dialogic exchange between different points of view represented in argument, correspondence, and intertextual allusiveness. Finally, it demonstrated the urgent need often experienced in the condemned cell to set the record straight (to name names) or to construct a memorial image of the authorial self and, more objectively, to testify for humankind by offering insights derived from the prisoner's experience.Less
This chapter demonstrates how Boethius' text established many of the themes and forms that spoke to and for later writers in prison. These include: consolation from the expressive power of ordered lyric meters set against the disorder of injustice and suffering in the real world; the importance of a well-stocked mind and imagination in maintaining resistance to oppression; and the expressive potential of paradox in reconciling apparent contraries and celebrating the creativity that may arise under situations of adversity. The text also promoted the subtle simplicity of dialectic and patterns of opposing binaries used to resolve impossible tensions in apparently progressive forms of logical argument and related forms of dialogic exchange between different points of view represented in argument, correspondence, and intertextual allusiveness. Finally, it demonstrated the urgent need often experienced in the condemned cell to set the record straight (to name names) or to construct a memorial image of the authorial self and, more objectively, to testify for humankind by offering insights derived from the prisoner's experience.
Dana Greene
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037108
- eISBN:
- 9780252094217
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037108.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
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 ...
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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
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.
L. A. Swift
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199577842
- eISBN:
- 9780191722622
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577842.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the methodological difficulties of defining Greek lyric genres and sets out a methodology for understanding lyric genres, influenced by contemporary genre‐theory and by the ...
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This chapter discusses the methodological difficulties of defining Greek lyric genres and sets out a methodology for understanding lyric genres, influenced by contemporary genre‐theory and by the works of Wittgenstein. It argues for a functionally driven approach to lyric, deriving from the poetry's performance context, and suggests that genres should be understood as functional cores around which conventional features accumulate. The chapter also gives an overview of how generic interaction works in tragedy and discusses the range of ways in which a tragedy can allude to a lyric genre. In discussing why certain genres were selected for the book, particular attention is paid to dithyrambos, which it is argued is fundamentally distinct from other types of ritual poetry.Less
This chapter discusses the methodological difficulties of defining Greek lyric genres and sets out a methodology for understanding lyric genres, influenced by contemporary genre‐theory and by the works of Wittgenstein. It argues for a functionally driven approach to lyric, deriving from the poetry's performance context, and suggests that genres should be understood as functional cores around which conventional features accumulate. The chapter also gives an overview of how generic interaction works in tragedy and discusses the range of ways in which a tragedy can allude to a lyric genre. In discussing why certain genres were selected for the book, particular attention is paid to dithyrambos, which it is argued is fundamentally distinct from other types of ritual poetry.
L. A. Swift
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199577842
- eISBN:
- 9780191722622
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577842.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the role that choral performance and lyric poetry held in fifth‐century Athenian life. It begins by examining the evidence for choral performance in Athens, and goes on to ...
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This chapter discusses the role that choral performance and lyric poetry held in fifth‐century Athenian life. It begins by examining the evidence for choral performance in Athens, and goes on to discuss how lyric poetry was known and circulated. Since many ‘high’ forms of poetry were known by elite means, this leads to a discussion of elite poetic material in democratic society, looking at the institution of the symposium and deriving evidence from oratory and comedy, as well as evidence from material culture. The chapter argues that Athenian attitudes to elite poetry were aspirational and that large sections of the tragic audience would have responded to lyric references. The chapter concludes with a discussion of tragedy's relationship to democracy and to Athenian civic ideology.Less
This chapter discusses the role that choral performance and lyric poetry held in fifth‐century Athenian life. It begins by examining the evidence for choral performance in Athens, and goes on to discuss how lyric poetry was known and circulated. Since many ‘high’ forms of poetry were known by elite means, this leads to a discussion of elite poetic material in democratic society, looking at the institution of the symposium and deriving evidence from oratory and comedy, as well as evidence from material culture. The chapter argues that Athenian attitudes to elite poetry were aspirational and that large sections of the tragic audience would have responded to lyric references. The chapter concludes with a discussion of tragedy's relationship to democracy and to Athenian civic ideology.
Katharine Hodgson
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262894
- eISBN:
- 9780191734977
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262894.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter looks at the poetic self in Berggol′ts's writing as a literary construct, informed not purely by biographical experience, but by literary tradition and other texts. An outline of ...
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This chapter looks at the poetic self in Berggol′ts's writing as a literary construct, informed not purely by biographical experience, but by literary tradition and other texts. An outline of Berggol′ts's views on lyric poetry is followed by a discussion of how the poetic self is constituted in her work, and an exploration of the multiple and conflicting discourses which construct the ‘I’ in her early writing, as well as of the preoccupation with contrast and contradiction in her poetic self-representation during the 1930s and 1940s. The rest of the chapter focuses on Berggol′ts's exploration of the possibilities for creating a unified poetic self which is capable of assuming a representative role as the voice of a generation. The whole discussion is informed by the question of the female poetic voice and its associations within Russian literary culture.Less
This chapter looks at the poetic self in Berggol′ts's writing as a literary construct, informed not purely by biographical experience, but by literary tradition and other texts. An outline of Berggol′ts's views on lyric poetry is followed by a discussion of how the poetic self is constituted in her work, and an exploration of the multiple and conflicting discourses which construct the ‘I’ in her early writing, as well as of the preoccupation with contrast and contradiction in her poetic self-representation during the 1930s and 1940s. The rest of the chapter focuses on Berggol′ts's exploration of the possibilities for creating a unified poetic self which is capable of assuming a representative role as the voice of a generation. The whole discussion is informed by the question of the female poetic voice and its associations within Russian literary culture.
Letizia Panizza
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264133
- eISBN:
- 9780191734649
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264133.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter examines the impersonations of the character of Laura of Petrarch's Canzoniere in sixteenth and seventeenth century Italy. It analyses commentaries and the rewritings of Petrarch's ...
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This chapter examines the impersonations of the character of Laura of Petrarch's Canzoniere in sixteenth and seventeenth century Italy. It analyses commentaries and the rewritings of Petrarch's Canzoniere that gave Laura celebrity status, either by hyperbole or denigration or outright impersonation. It suggests that the works on the ambivalence of Laura's identity are part a general questioning of the nature of the love lyric, its remote language, and its moral codes in an era of reform.Less
This chapter examines the impersonations of the character of Laura of Petrarch's Canzoniere in sixteenth and seventeenth century Italy. It analyses commentaries and the rewritings of Petrarch's Canzoniere that gave Laura celebrity status, either by hyperbole or denigration or outright impersonation. It suggests that the works on the ambivalence of Laura's identity are part a general questioning of the nature of the love lyric, its remote language, and its moral codes in an era of reform.
Joanna Gavins
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748622993
- eISBN:
- 9780748671540
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748622993.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Applied Linguistics and Pedagogy
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 ...
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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
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.
Hannah Vandegrift Eldridge
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801456954
- eISBN:
- 9781501701061
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801456954.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
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 ...
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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
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.
Seth L. Schein
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199288076
- eISBN:
- 9780191713439
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199288076.003.0018
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter argues for a ‘foreignizing’ rather than a ‘domesticating’ approach to translating literary texts — in particular, Aeschylean choral poetry — that will be read and discussed with students ...
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This chapter argues for a ‘foreignizing’ rather than a ‘domesticating’ approach to translating literary texts — in particular, Aeschylean choral poetry — that will be read and discussed with students in the classroom. It considers in detail how the first stasimon of Aeschylus' Agamemnon was translated to preserve or convey as much as possible of Aeschylus' distinctive difficulty, his linguistic and stylistic complexity.Less
This chapter argues for a ‘foreignizing’ rather than a ‘domesticating’ approach to translating literary texts — in particular, Aeschylean choral poetry — that will be read and discussed with students in the classroom. It considers in detail how the first stasimon of Aeschylus' Agamemnon was translated to preserve or convey as much as possible of Aeschylus' distinctive difficulty, his linguistic and stylistic complexity.
G. O. Hutchinson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199279418
- eISBN:
- 9780191707322
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279418.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The discussion of Horace's lyric is taken beyond the previous chapter. The book of Epodes and each book of Odes are seen to have a dynamic structure, to move decisively. Horace uses Archilochus and ...
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The discussion of Horace's lyric is taken beyond the previous chapter. The book of Epodes and each book of Odes are seen to have a dynamic structure, to move decisively. Horace uses Archilochus and Hipponax and Alcaeus, Sappho, and other Greek lyric poets in the creation of structures which revolve around the relation of and tension between art and the narrator. These are metaliterary books, concerned with themselves. Papyri of lyric and related texts are used to show the scholarly and critical tradition which would have shaped Horace's reading and study of lyric. The arrangement of poems in lyric papyri is considered, and Horace's intertextuality with a complex tradition explored.Less
The discussion of Horace's lyric is taken beyond the previous chapter. The book of Epodes and each book of Odes are seen to have a dynamic structure, to move decisively. Horace uses Archilochus and Hipponax and Alcaeus, Sappho, and other Greek lyric poets in the creation of structures which revolve around the relation of and tension between art and the narrator. These are metaliterary books, concerned with themselves. Papyri of lyric and related texts are used to show the scholarly and critical tradition which would have shaped Horace's reading and study of lyric. The arrangement of poems in lyric papyri is considered, and Horace's intertextuality with a complex tradition explored.
