WEEK 5: GREEK LYRIC POETRY (2/15)
a totally different style than Homer or Hesiod
different subjects, different interpretations, different tropes
different meters
iambic (short-long), melic (sung), elegiac (adaption of dactylic hexameter), lyric (played to the lyre)
the death of epic poetry?
general themes: love, women, sociopolitical commentary, the concerns of the individual, contact with East and West
canon: 9 lyric poets - Sappho, Alcaeus, Stesichorus, Ibycus, Alcman, Anacreon, Simonides, Pindar, Bacchylides
Archilochus of Paros (c. 680 - after 648)
mercenary, soldier, colonist
love and sex
seafaring and shipwrecks, colonial ventures
women (epodes 3-4)
iconoclastic (elegies 5)
Eastern wealth (fr. 19)
justice (the vixen and the eagle, epode 1, cf. Hesiod, Works and Days)
attack poetry (iambs)
target: Lycambes (epode 1)
Semonides of Amorgos (mid-7th century)
colonist
satire on women (iambs again), fr. 7
ten types of women: sow, vixen, bitch, earth, sea, ass, weasel, mare, monkey, bee
the pain of men (fr. 1)
Sappho of Lesbos (second half of the 7th century)
first female Greek writer whose work survives, "the tenth Muse"
relationships between women (e.g., fr. 31, fr. 1)
a different point of view: e. g., on the Trojan War (fr. 44) and on war in general (fr. 16)
one of the nine lyric poets of ancient Greece
Stesichorus of Himera (640-555)
retelling myths: Trojan War, Oresteia, Heracles ("The Song of Geryon," "The Sack of Troy," "The Sons of Oedipus")
the palinode to Helen and the question of poetic truth again
another of the nine lyric poets of Greece
Why is lyric poetry so important?
Continue to the next lecture outline
Return to the previous lecture outline
Updated 2-10-08, bolmarcich[at]mail.utexas.edu