CLAS 210 Lecture Notes - Olga Levaniouk PDF

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Olga Levaniouk...

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CLAS 210 

March 28, 2018 Notes: Lecture #1 

I. Homer and Homeric Poetry → a very elusive character because he was writing epics during the Archaic period ↳ can perhaps be a mythological figure → Homeric poetry presents oral and traditional stance ↳ these poems go back to oral songs > short sentences and repetition ↳ in 1920, Milman Parry suggested that Homeric poetry approached it scientifically to test whether or not it was oral tradition > did contemporary illiterate traditional songs share the similar characteristics of Homeric poetry? > found that the songs sung by the illiterate traditional singers were similar to Homeric poetry (The Singer of Tales) > the main disagreements: oral songs cannot be that organised, that long or that eloquent → how did he do it? ↳ the oral poem had a difficult verse form but they used formulaic equations ↳ poets memorised chunks that are patched together ↳ for example, when speaking about Achilles, he must be relayed as “swift-footed Achilles” → how old is this tradition? ↳ the poems share common phrases with the poetry of other Indo-European languages → what does epic mean? ↳ an expansive, big poem usually in an elevated style ↳ usually written about heroes > a hero is a figure of old who has power after death and is worshipped at his grave            

CLAS 210 

March 30, 2018 Notes: Lecture #2 

I. The Iliad → the death of heroes are often use simile comparing it to plants ↳ “A poplar that has grown up in rich bottom soil / With a smooth trunk branching out at top” ↳ “His head sagged to one side - like a poppy / In a garden, heaving with seeds and spring rain / Gorgythion’s head, weighted with his helmet.” ↳ “My perfect son, the best of heroes. He grew like a sapling and I nursed him / As I would a plant on the hill in my garden.” ↳ “As a tree falls, oak, or poplar, or spreading pine / When carpenters cut it down in the forest / With their bright axes, to be the beam of a ship.” → menis (rage) is not a word for a hostile emotion arising in one individual against some other individual, as we may spontaneously understand it ↳ it is a name of a feeling no separate from the action it entails, of a cosmic level, of a social force whose activation brings drastic consequences on the whole community ↳ it is a sanction meant to g  uarantee and maintain the integrity of the world order → Achilles’s decision: if he chooses war, he will gain glory but have a short life → the first menis is the plague of Apollo ↳ arrows are shot at the Grecian army                   

CLAS 210 

April 4, 2018

Notes: Lecture #3  I. Greek Lyric Poetry → there are three branches of lyric poetry ↳a  eolic verse: dialect > three to four stanzas repeated over and over > fixed metrical sequences ↳ i onic verse: dialect, dactylic hexameter (metre of Homer), stichic (ine by line) > elegiac couplet > epodic (alternating short and long) > iambic trimeter (satiric and non-satiric), stichic) > trochaic tetrameter catalectic (satiric and non-satiric), stichic ↳d  oric verse: dialect, triadic system (strophe, antistrophe, epode) like bridge > each song a new composition > choral: sung by a group and accompanied by dance > monodic: sung by one singer to the accompany of music → NB Attic tragedy employed the iambic tetrameter and trochaic tetrameter catalectic in the dialogue ections and Doric verse in the choral odes, making it a hybrid composition  II. Archilochus → first half/middle of the 7th century BCE (conventionally considered the earliest attested Greek lyric poet) → songs in wide variety of genre and on a wide range of subjects: politics, seafaring, war, love, betrayal (had a famous feud with Lycambes over his daughter Neobule) → iambos: both metre and biting verse → apotropaic origin as part of a religious festival → ionic dialect and metres (stichic and epodic)  III. Mimnermus → mid-seventh century BCE → composed a long epic-like poem which did not survive as well as a poem named after his mistress, Nanno, a model for Hellenistic poets  IV. Alcaeus → from island of Lesbos → last quarter of the 7th BCE  V. Sappho → also from the island of Lesbos

→ last quarter of 7th century BCE → songs for choral and solo performances connected to the cults of Aphrodite and Hera, songs about love between girls and womens, love songs, wedding songs,  songs on family subjects, mythological narratives → aeolic dialect and meters (fixed stanzas)  VI. Ibycus → the city of Rhegium (southern Italy)  → 6th century BCE → composed heroic narrative but none survives, what survives is primarily erotic → wrote poetry at the court of the tyrant Polycrates of Samos ↳ autocrats who attract poets, artists and their skilled in various arts, will become a popular practice in the Greco-Roman world and beyond → Doric dialect and meters  VII. Anacreon → the island of Teos → first half of the 6th century → songs mostly about wine and love both heterosexual and homosexual → like Ibycus, he wrote poetry at the court of Polycrates  ...