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
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
- 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?
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- 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
630 B.C.
love songs
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