Lyric poetry
Poetry represented the only form of Greek literature until the late Archaic Age. The
earliest Greek poetry, that of Homer and Hesiod, had been confined to a single rhythm. A
much greater rhythmic diversity characterized the new form of poetry, called lyric, that
emerged during the Archaic Age. (These texts are not yet available to Perseus.) Lyric
poems were far shorter than the narrative poetry of Homer or the didactic poetry of
Hesiod, and they encompassed many forms and subjects, but they were always performed
with the accompaniment of the
lyre1 (a
kind of harp that gives its name to the poetry). Choral poets like
Alcman2 of Sparta wrote songs to be performed by groups on public occasions to honor the
gods, to celebrate famous events in a city-state's history, for wedding processions, and
to praise victors in athletic contests. Lyric poets writing songs for solo performance
on social occasions stressed a personal level of expression on a variety of topics.
Solon and
Alcaeus3, for example, wrote poems focused on contemporary politics. Others
self-consciously adopted a critical attitude toward traditional values such as strength
in war. For instance,
Sappho4, a lyric
poet from Lesbos born about 630 B.C. and famous for her poems on love, wrote,
“Some would say the most beautiful thing on our dark earth is an army of
cavalry, others of infantry, others of ships, but I say it's whatever a person
loves.” In this poem Sappho was expressing her longing for a woman she loved,
who was now far away.
Archilochus5 of Paros, whose lifetime probably fell in the early seventh century, became
famous for his range of poems on themes as diverse as friends lost at sea, mockery of
martial valor, and love gone astray. The bitter power of his poetic invective reportedly
caused a father and his two daughters to commit suicide when Archilochus ridiculed them
in anger after the father had put an end to Archilochus's affair with his daughter
Neobule. Some modern literary critics think the poems about Neobule and her family are
fictional, not autobiographical, and were meant to display Archilochus's dazzling talent
for “blame poetry,” the mirror image of lyric as the poetry of
praise. Mimnermus of
Colophon6, another seventh century lyric poet, rhapsodized about the glory of youth and
lamented its brevity, “no longer than the time the sun shines on the
plain.” Lyric poetry's focus on the individual's feelings represented a new
stage in Greek literary sensibilities, one that continues to inspire poets.
