Lyric Poetry

Historical Background

• Archaic Age, 750 - 500 B.C.

• Rise of the Polis (TRM 5.1)

• Age of Colonization (TRM 5.5)

• Rise in foreign influence
  • alphabet (Phoenicians)
  • shared culture
  • coinage

• Women in the Archaic Age
  • more responsibilities in the oikos (TRM 5.27)

  • outside the oikos (esp. if poor) (TRM 5.28)

  • as polis becomes more important, so does procreation (TRM 5.30)

Poetic Background (TRM 6.32)

• shorter than poems of Homer and Hesiod

• various themes and forms
  • monodic = informal situations (ie. symposia)
    • emphasize unity within smaller groups
    • individual relationships
    • praise and blame
  • choral = formal/ceremonial occasions
    • emphasize civic unity
    • learn from the past
  • most poets wrote both
    
  • sometimes hard to tell the difference
    

• always accompanied by a lyre (image) or kithara or barbitos or aulos

• no originals, all quoted by later authors

• melos = melody = lyric

• court poetry
  • Ibykos, Anakreon, Simonides
  • supported by patrons of the arts
  • lighter themes
    • drinking
    • love
    • proverbs

Differences between Epic and Lyric

As a class, we will figure this out...

lyric did not evolve out of epic, but did use some epic formulae and diction

Male Poets

• Archilochos of Paros

  • 680 - 640 B.C.
    
  • "father of lyric poetry"
    
  • colonized Thasos
    
  • famous for range of themes (very unconventional)
    
    • friends lost at sea
      
    • mock valor in war
      
    • love gone astray
      
    • Neobule --> lover
      
      • invective against her --> father and his two daughters commit suicide
        
      • fictional?
        
  • Poems:
    
    • #3 --> Homeric kleos?
      
    • #11 & #14 --> fables
      
    • #16, #17, #19 --> physical effects of love?
      
    • #18 --> Neobule
      
    • #20 --> what do you think of the ending?

• Mimnermos of Colophon

  • Nanno the flute player
    
  • joys of living and sexual pleasure

• Phokylides

• Alkman of Sparta

  • Themes
    • partheneia (choral odes sung by maidens)
      
    • public occassions
      
    • honor gods
      
    • celebrate accomplishments
      
    • wedding processions
      
    • praise victors
      
  • Poems:
    
    • #1 --> Agido and Hagesichora
    • #4 --> festival, gods
    • #5, #6 --> love

• Stesichoros of Himera, Sicily

  • 600 B.C.
    
  • unusual versions of myths
    
  • erotic; unhappy love
    
  • Poems:
    
    • #2, #3, #4 --> Helen of Troy --> what's the real story?

• Alkaios of Lesbos

  • contemporary of Sappho
    
  • myth and metaphor
    
  • political poems
    
  • Poems:
    
    • #1 --> political, traitors
      
    • #2 --> political gripes; what does he say about Lesbian women?
      
    • #5 --> Peleus and Thetis, Helen: who's the perfect wife?
      
    • #6 --> Helen

• Ibykos

  • 2nd half 6c.
    
  • b. Rhegium, Italy
    
  • moved to Samos for Polycrates
    
  • Poems:
    
    • #1, #2 --> love
      
    • #5 --> Homeric theme, but it is Homeric in tone?; dedicated to Polycrates

• Anakreon of Teos

  • 2nd half 6 c.
    
  • also spent time on Samos with Polycrates
    
  • later moved to Athens
    
  • many authors imitated him
    
  • enjoyed life
  • Poems:
    
    • #1 --> drinking song
      
    • #4 --> what does he say about Lesbian women in comparison with Alkaios?
      
    • #3, #5 --> homosexuality?
      
    • #6 --> White Rock of Leukas--> what is the myth and who is he writing about?
      
    • #8 --> physical effects of love
      
    • #10 --> death
      
    • #11 --> "a tramp"?

• Simonides of Keos

  • 556 - 468 B.C.
    
  • epinikian odes
    
  • myth
  • Poems:
    • #2 --> change of fortune
      
    • #4 --> honor the dead soldiers
      
    • #5 --> Kleoboulos (the same as Anakreon?)
      
    • #8 --> love
      
    • #14 --> Aphrodite

Semonides of Amorgos

• 625 B.C.
  
• Poem 7
  
• beast fable
  
• #7 --> longest iambus preserved
  

Sappho of Lesbos

love songs