Sunoikisis Greek 292/392: Greek Lyric Poetry
Syllabus, Fall 2013
Faculty Consultant: Prof. Gregory Nagy (Harvard University)
Course Director: Prof. Ryan C. Fowler (CHS)
This work by the Sunoikisis consortium is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. To view a
copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.
Syllabus Authors:
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D. Ben DeSmidt (Carthage College)
Ryan C. Fowler (CHS Sunoikisis)
Heather Waddell Gruber (Concordia College)
Joseph N. Jansen (Rhodes College)
Gregory Nagy (Harvard University)
Polyvia Parara (University of Maryland)
Arum Park (Brigham Young University)
Danilo Piana (Ph.D. candidate, Johns Hopkins University)
Joseph Romero (University of Mary Washington)
David Sick (Rhodes College)
Heather Vincent (Eckerd College)
David Yates (Millsaps College)
Included in this syllabus: a course overview, a bibliography, a schedule of
assignments, and study questions.
COURSE OVERVIEW
Course Faculty:
D. Ben DeSmidt is an Associate Professor of Great Ideas and Classics
at Carthage College.
Ryan C. Fowler is the CHS Sunoikisis Fellow in Curricular Development.
Heather Waddell Gruber is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at
Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.
Joseph N. Jansen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Greek
and Roman Studies at Rhodes College, where he also teaches courses for
the History Department and the Search for Values Program.
Gregory Nagy is the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature
and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University and the
Director of Harvard University's Center for Hellenic Studies.
Polyvia Parara is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of
Maryland.
Arum Park is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Brigham Young University.
Danilo Piana is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Classics at the
Johns Hopkins University.
Joseph Romero is an Associate Professor at the University of Mary
Washington.
David Sick is an Associate Professor at Rhodes College.
Heather Vincent is an Associate Professor of Classics at Eckerd College.
David Yates is an Assistant Professor at Millsaps College.
NB: All common sessions will occur on Wednesday evenings at 7:00
Eastern Time. Weeks are listed starting on Thursday of the week before
each common session. Students should complete all listed readings in the
week before the lecture and respond to posted study questions by noon
the Sunday before the common session, so that faculty and other
students will have the opportunity to review responses.
Course Description
This course, making extensive use of resources available via the internet,
focuses on the evolution of major types of Greek poetry, including elegy
(Archilochus, Tyrtaeus, Solon, Xenophanes, Simonides, Theognis),
monodic lyric (Sappho, Alcaeus, Anacreon, and Simonides), and choral
lyric (Pindar and Bacchylides). This course is specifically designed for
advanced students and will include a rigorous study of cultural and
historical contexts during the archaic period in Greece. Students will also
become familiar with current interpretative approaches to the material.
In spite of the new directions and diverse contexts of the poetry, authors
at this time created and sustained a dialogue with the epic tradition
found in Homer and Hesiod, so some familiarity with epic will help
inform students' work with elegaic and lyric poems.
Students will participate in a weekly webcast lecture, an on-line
discussion moderated by faculty members from participating institutions,
and weekly tutorials with faculty members at their home institutions.
Course Objectives
Advanced students of Greek will continue developing their understanding
of ancient Greek by studying the poetry that emerged during the archaic
period and represented a clear and significant departure from the epic
tradition. This course will track the development of three major forms of
poetry: elegy, monodic lyric, and choral lyric poetry. The course will also
explore the social and political background of Greece in the archaic
period because this poetry contains some of the earliest personal
testimonia from ancient Greece.
Course Components
Preparation: As noted below, readings are organized by common session,
and students should read all assigned primary texts before the common
session (ideally before answering the corresponding writing prompt).
Students who choose to take this course at the 292 rather than 392 level
will be responsible for less reading in Greek but will be expected to
complete all of the reading in English.
Common Sessions: Wednesday, 7-8:15 PM EST. Students at all
participating institutions will meet together online for a common session
via multipoint interactive video-conferencing and a chat room. These
interactive sessions have a different faculty leader each week and
typically combine mini-lectures with discussion, questions, and exercises.
Study Questions: Responses to the study questions are due Sunday by
noon; between then and the common session, please provide at least one
substantial comment to two other students' posts. The study questions
afford students the opportunity to expand on and synthesize issues that
arise in the reading and common session, as well as engage with
secondary literature. Students may be asked to complete additional
reading in English for the study questions.
Due Dates and Times for Discussion Questions:
Initial answers to study prompts are due noon EST on Sundays, and
responses to other students' answers are due before that week’s Common
Session.
Tutorials: Each student will meet for at least one hour every week with a
mentor at her or his home institution. The times and locations of these
meetings will be determined on each campus. Students are responsible
for contacting their faculty mentors and finalizing the details of their
weekly meetings. These sessions will focus more closely on issues of
language, translation and interpretation of assigned readings. Home
campus mentors will be the final authority for all grades.
Examinations: Translation exams and quizzes will be handled by home
institutions.
There will be a Google Hangout office hour Fridays from 1-2pm EST.
The course weeks will be September 11th through December 4th. There
is a midterm break between Oct. 9th-15th.
For students in Greek 292, grades will be based on the following
components:
Class preparation and work in tutorial: 40%
Participation in the study questions: 30%
Midterm examination: 15%
Final examination: 15%
For students in Greek 392, grades will be based on the following
components:
Class preparation and work in tutorial: 30%
Participation in the study questions: 30%
Midterm examination: 20%
Final examination: 20%
COURSE BIBLIOGRAPHY
Suggested Texts:
Most texts and commentaries will be made available in the resources
section of the Sakai site for the class, but individual faculty may require
students to purchase one or more texts.
Hard copy text:
Campbell, David, ed. 1982. Greek Lyric Poetry. Duckworth Publishing.
Supplementary English translations:
Lattimore, Richmond, trans. 1960. Greek Lyrics. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Verity, Anthony, trans. 2008. The Complete Odes of Pindar. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Fagles, Robert. 1998. Bacchylides: Complete Poems. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Carson, Anne, trans. 2003. If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho. New
York: Vintage.
Secondary readings:
 Battezzato, Luigi. 2005. "Lyric," in A Companion to Greek Tragedy,
pp. 149-166.
 Falkner, Thomas. 1995. "The Politics and Poetics of Time: Solon's
Ten Ages" in The Poetics of Old Age in Greek Epic, Lyric, and
Tragedy, pp. 153-168.
 Felson, Nancy. 1999. "Vicarious Fictive Deixis in Pindar's Pythian
Four." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 99: 1-31.
 Ferrari, Gloria. 2008. “Introduction,” in Alcman and the Cosmos of
Sparta.
 Kurke, Leslie. 2007. “Greek Archaic Poetry," in Cambridge
Companion to Archaic Greece, pp. 141-58.
 Ladianou, Katerina. 2005. “The Poetics of Choreia: Imitation and
Dance in the Anacreontea.” Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica
80: 47-60.
 Nagy, Gregory. 2007. "Did Sappho and Alcaeus ever meet?
Symmetries of myth and ritual in performing the songs of ancient
Lesbos," pp. 211-269.
 Nagy, Gregory. 2007. “Lyric and Greek Myth,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Greek Mythology, ed. R.D. Woodward, Cambridge
University Press.
 Parry, Hugh. 2006. The Lyric Poems of Greek Tragedy, pp. 47-70.
 Rosenmeyer, Patricia. “Introduction: the Anacreontic question and
Origins: the role of Anacreon as model,” in The Poetics of
Imitation: Anacreon and the Anacreontic Tradition, pp. 1-49.
 Winkler, John J. 1990. “Double Consciousness in Sappho’s Lyrics,”
in The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender
in Ancient Greece, pp. 162-87.
SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND COMMON SESSIONS
(Texts and links for each session's are available in the Resources folder.)
Introductory Common Session (September 11)
Wednesday
“Introduction to the course, technology, and logistics” (Ryan Fowler,
CHS)
First Common Session (September 18)
Greek reading:
300-level: Callinus 1 (and commentary); Tyrtaeus 9 (and commentary);
Theognis 39-68 (and commentary); Archilochus 1, 2, 6, 22 (and
commentary) (709)
200-level: Tyrtaeus 9 (and commentary); Theognis 39-68 (and
commentary); Archilochus 1, 2, 6, 22 (and commentary) (508 words)
Common Session assignment:
Please read: 300-level (in English): Tyrtaeus 2; Xenophanes 2;
Archilochus (all) (in Lattimore GL selections)
200-level (in English): Tyrtaeus 2; Xenophanes 2; Archilochus (all);
Callinus 1; Theognis 53-68 (in Lattimore GL selections)
Both levels Read:
Leslie Kurke, “Greek Archaic Poetry," in Cambridge Companion to
Archaic Greece, pp. 141-58
Kurke’s article exemplifies two major trends in the study of Greek lyric
poetry for the last quarter century. The first is the anti-Romantic reading
of the lyrical corpus, which deemphasizes the individual poet’s unique
personality and subjectivity in favor of viewing the author as simply
giving voice to the values, concerns, anxieties, etc. of the social group to
which he/she author belonged. This school rarely speaks of poets as flesh
and blood personalities with real historical biographies, but rather of
competing poetic traditions that exemplify the ideological outlooks of
the groups the poets represent, which often transcended the time and
place of their supposed floruit. So, for example, many scholars no longer
talk about Theognis the disgruntled Megarian aristocrat who lived in the
early 6th century as they do about “Theognidean poetry” or the “Theognis
poetic tradition,” a style of elegiac poetry fit for delivery at a symposium
anywhere and at anytime in the Greek world where elites felt out of sync
with their contemporaries on a whole host of issues from love and sex to
the nouveaux riche.
The second major trend in scholarship on Greek lyric has been a move
towards “cultural poetics” or New Historicism, if you prefer
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Historicism), which holds the view
that everything is political: “that language and knowledge, like
everything else in culture, are not separate, disinterested spheres
exempt from the play of differential power relations, but are discourses
generated and structured by those relations” (Dougherty and Kurke,
Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece, p. 5). As Kurke’s own analysis of a
variety of lyric poems evidence, texts are sites for the ongoing
negotiation of power relations within society, with the struggle between
elite and “middling” traditions taking center stage during the archaic
age. For Kurke then, these poems “preserve a precious record of intense
ideological contestation” (p.145).
In 350-450 words, answer one of the following questions based on Kurke’s
article
1) Taking Tyrtaeus’ poetry (9 and 2 in Lattimore GL) as a case study,
write an anti-biographical based analysis of his poetry, underscoring the
values and ideologies it promotes, especially those that speak against a
local (epichoric), Spartan context and more towards a Panhellenic one
(but please note that you do not have to take the position that a real
Tyrtaeus ever existed). In short, what is Tyrtaean poetry all about?
Although you are to eschew a biographical approach, you should consult
David Campbell’s (GLP) synopsis of his life on pp. 168-171. Such
biographical details, especially those from the classical age, as Kurke
shows us in her examination of Archilochus, can be useful for
understanding the nature lyrical poetic traditions. One hint: why would
Plato think that Tyrtaeus was an Athenian by birth?
2) Noting carefully what Kurke has to say about Archilochus and his
ideological stance vis-à-vis the culture of habrosyneof monody, give your
own New Historicist interpretation of his poem about his shield (6 GLP).
In Archaic Greece, why would a shield be a matter of ideological
contestation? Do any of his other poems speak shed light on this
question?
Wednesday “Historical overview of the Archaic Period” (Joe Jansen,
Rhodes College)
Second Common Session (September 25)
Greek reading:
300-level: Tyrtaeus 10; Solon 3, 24; Alcaeus (life) 6, (frr.) 70,
348; Theognis: 19-38, 39-52 (and commentary [19-26, 39-52]) (905 words)
200-level: Solon 3; Alcaeus (life) 6, (frr.) 70, 348; Theognis: 19-38 (and
commentary [19-26]) (485 words)
Common Session assignment:
In his book " To Hellenio Kosmosystema" Professor George Contogiorgis
analyses the rise of the Greek world as a world of freedom surrounded by
a despotic cosmosystem (Persia, Egypt). Evolving through the centuries,
the world of Greek poleis reach its culminating point during the Classical
Period with the Athenian Constitution, a democracy of holistic freedom
(individual, social and political) for its citizenry (δῆμος).
Looking at contemporary political evolutions, civic values, and virtues as
reflected in the lyric poets, to what extent do you recognize the rise of
the values of democracy in the archaic period? Take 250-300 words to
answer, referring specifically to your Greek texts and using the English
poems you have read as support.
To elaborate on this question you may want to consider the following
topics and questions:
Tytraeus
Based on fragment 10, elaborate the civic virtues and the
ideal of the collective citizenry.
Solon Explore to what extent poem 4 (Campbell's Solon 3), “The Elegy
of the Polis,” can be read as an analysis of Athens’ political problems
(are these problems local or universal)?
Elaborate the role of the
poet/lawgiver as described in poem 36.
Based on these two elegies, how
does Solon’s "σοφίη" circumscribe the relation between the city and the
citizen?
Theognis
What are the Greek political terms for: nobles, base, city,
people, leaders, tyrants, civil strife. What does this terminology
imply?
In fragment 19-38, how does the poet describe his role in his polis
and his attitude towards his fellow citizens?
Which is the political
meaning/content of the term “εὐθυντήρ” in fragment 39-52? To whom
does the phrase “ἡμετέρη ὕβρις” refer, and what is its connotation?
Alcaeus
Based on fragments 70, 72, 129, 130 B, comment on Dionysius of
Halicarnassus' thought about the poet: "Often if you remove the meter
you would find the political rhetoric." (On Imitation, in Fragment 20
in Alcaeus’ Life)
Wednesday
“Politics, the State, Civic Virtue and Lyric” (Polyvia Parara, University of
Maryland) [pdf of the lecture]
Third Common Session (October 2)
Greek Reading:
300-level:
Threnoi
Pindar, frr. 128c, 129, 130, 131a, 131b, 134, 136a
Aeschylus, Persians 705-8 (Darius speaking to Atossa), 821-6 (Darius
speaking to Atossa and Chorus of Persian Elders), 840-2 (Darius speaking
to the Chorus)
Sophocles, Electra 287-292 (Electra speaking about Clytemnestra to
Chorus of Mycenaean Women)
Euripides, Alcestis 416-19 (Chorus of Citizens of Pherae speaking to
Admetus), 864-71 (Admetus lamenting before the Chorus), 903-10
(Chorus speaking to Admetus)
Hymenaioi
Sappho, frr. 2, 27, 30, 103b, 107, 108, 109, 110a, 111, 112, 113, 114,
115, 116 (and commentary [2, 110a, 111, 115])
Euripides, Hippolytus 73-81 (Hippolytus speaking before the altar of
Artemis)
Aeschylus, Suppliants 1018-33 (Chorus of Danaids)
200-Level:
Threnoi
Pindar, frr. 128c, 129, 130, 131a, 131b, 134, 136a
Hymenaioi
Sappho, frr. 2, 27, 30, 103b, 107, 108, 109, 110a, 111, 112, 113, 114,
115, 116 (and commentary [2, 110a, 111, 115])
Common Session assignment:
Please read:
In the Blackwell Companion to Greek Tragedy: Lyric (Luigi Battezzato
[Università del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy])
Please take 300-400 words and discuss the following: Fifth-century
Athenian tragedy is a genre that encompasses many of the forms and
content of Archaic lyric. I've selected two particular lyric genres-hymenaioi (wedding songs) and threnoi (ritual laments)--as our focus for
this week. What themes can you identify as common to both the lyric and
tragic selections assigned? How do the tragic contexts adopt/adapt their
lyric models?
Wednesday
“Lyric and Tragedy” (Arum Park, BYU)
Fourth Common Session (October 9)
Greek reading:
300-level: Sappho 1, 16, 22, 31, 44, 94, 96, 105A, 111 (review), 168B (=
Adesp. 976 and commentary) (and commentary [1, 16, 31, 44, 96, 105a,
111]); Alcman 1 (and commentary)
200-level: Sappho 1, 16, 22, 31, 94, 96, 105A, 111 (review), 168B (=
Adesp. 976 [and commentary]) (and commentary [1, 16, 31, 44, 96, 105a,
111])
Common Session assignment:
Read in Translation:
Iliad V.114-459
Secondary Readings:
Winkler, John J. “Double Consciousness in Sappho’s Lyrics,” in The
Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient
Greece (1990): 162-87.
300-level: Images from Ferrari to accompany Alcman (Ferrari, Gloria.
“Introduction,” in Alcman and the Cosmos of Sparta.) Figures 1-4
between pages 2-3 (We will discuss these images in the concurrent
session)
"Double consciousness” is a term coined by W. E. B DuBois to describe
the “sense of always looking at one-self through the eyes of others, of
measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused
contempt and pity” (The Souls of Black Folk, 1903). He argued that the
awareness of being both American and African American led to a sort of
internalized two-ness. African Americans had to learn how to operate
both within a White America and within a separate Black America.
DuBois’ concept of double consciousness can be used to understand the
way any socially subordinate group defines itself with regards to the
socially dominant group. John J. Winkler applies DuBois’ theory to men
and women in 7th century BCE Lesbos. According to Winkler, “There are
two sides to double consciousness: Sappho both re-enacts scenes from
public culture infused with her private perspective as the enclosed
woman, and she speaks publicly of the most private, woman-centered
experiences from which men are strictly excluded” (181). What does he
mean by this? How can poems 1, 16, and 31 be understood in the
context of Homer (or why should they be)? How does Sappho use
language in such a way that even the most private desires can be
expressed publicly? Given the nature of Sappho's sexual imagery, how do
you interpret poems 94, 105A and 111? In 300-400 words, feel free to
discuss any or all of these questions.
Wednesday
“The Apple of Desire: Sex, Gender, and Lyric” (Heather Gruber,
Concordia College)
Midterm Break Oct. 10-16
Fifth Common Session (October 23)
Greek Reading:
300-level: Mimnermus 1-2, 10 (and commentary); Anacreon 358 (and
commentary), 395 (and commentary); Sappho 104a (and
commentary), 168B (= Adesp. 976 and commentary) (review); Ibycus 287
(and commentary); Solon 19 (and commentary); Semonides 1 (and
commentary)
200-level: Mimnermus 1-2, 10 (and commentary); Anacreon 395 (and
commentary); Sappho 104a (and commentary), 168B (= Adesp. 976 and
commentary); Ibycus 287 (and commentary)
Common Session assignment:
Reading:
Falkner, Thomas. 1995. "The Politics and Poetics of Time:
Solon's Ten Ages" in The Poetics of Old Age in Greek Epic, Lyric, and
Tragedy. Norman, OK. pp. 153-168.
In 300-400 words, please respond to
the following questions:
1) Consider the various metaphors for youth and old age you encountered
in this week’s assignments, and choose a particular poem that employs
traditional metaphors and images. How do these images function in the
poem? (Is the function structural? Allusive? Philosophical? Purely
aesthetic?) Explain.
2) Thomas Falkner finds considerable merit in the innovative arithmetic
structure of Solon’s so-called “Ten Ages” poem, and he connects the
quantitative emphasis of the poem with Solon’s political
program. Whether or not we agree with Falkner’s positive assessment of
the poem’s aesthetic, one thing is very clear: Solon’s descriptions of age
are highly atypical and seem to eschew (if not refute) conventional
symbolism. Do you think that the “Ten Ages” simply ignores traditional
lyric representations of youth and old age, or is there some way (ANY
way) in which the poem is in dialogue with the conventional tropes?
Wednesday
“Youth, Old Age, and Mortality in Lyric” (Heather Vincent, Eckerd
College)
Sixth Common Session (October 30)
Greek Reading:
300-level: Anacreon frr. 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 363, 364, 372, 373, 374,
375, 376, 378, 381, 383, 386, 388, 389, 393, 395, 396, 397, 398, 400,
402, 407, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414 (w/ testimonia), 415, 417, 427,
428, 433, 434, 439, 450, 481; eleg. 2 (~750 words)
200-level: Anacreon ffr. 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376,
388, 395, 396, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414 (w/ testimonia), 417, 428,
eleg. 2 (~ 460 words)
Please read:
Rosenmeyer, Patricia. 2006, 1-49. Introduction: the Anacreontic question
and Origins: the role of Anacreon as model. In The Poetics of Imitation:
Anacreon and the Anacreontic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Ladianou, Katerina. 2005. The Poetics of Choreia: Imitation and Dance in
the Anacreontea. Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica 80:47-60. [Stable
JSTOR URL] w/ supplementary Anacreon in Lattimore's collection (45-46).
Please take 300-350 words and discuss the following:
What themes and images does Anacreon's poetry share with the other
poets you have read so far in the course? Find analogies and differences.
Compare and contrast.
Directions: After selecting a theme, e.g. love, some working questions
could be: What image(s) does Sappho present of love? Is Anacreon's take
different? If so, how do their views differ? How do they envisage their
relationships? What kind of feelings are portrayed? In what kind of way?
What kind of imagery is used?
Wednesday
“Images in Lyric” (Danilo Piana, Johns Hopkins)
Presentation
Seventh Common Session (November 6)
Greek Reading:
300-level: Pindar Olympian 1 (and commentary), Isthmian 1; Bacchylides
3 (and commentary)
200-level: Pindar Olympian 1.1-58 (and commentary), Isthmian 1;
Bacchylides 3 (and commentary)
Resources for Pindar:
For Olymp. 1: Dickey, Eleanor and Richard Hamilton. New Selected Odes
of Pindar. 2 vols. (Text and Commentary). Bryn Mawr PA: Bryn Mawr
Greek Commentaries.
Lexical aide: W.J. Slater's Lexicon to Pindar
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A199
9.04.0072&redirect=true)
Running Vocabulary for Olympian 1
Common Session assignment:
Read:
Both levels: Olympian 11 (in English)
Please take 300-400 words and discuss the following:
Please do two things for me: (1) Read Pindar's Olympian 1, Olympian 11,
Isthmian 1, and Bacchylides 3. What are the basic elements of a poem
celebrating a victor ("epinician")? You may want to focus on the final
three poems and then try to identify those elements in Olympian
1. What is the purpose of an epinician poem? Then tell me (2) why in
Olympian 1 Pindar reaches outside of his contemporary context to
connect with the heroic age by recounting Greek myths. What do you
suppose is the relationship between history and myth?
Wednesday
“Epinician: Pindar & Bacchylides” (Joe Romero, University of Mary
Washington)
Presentation
Eighth Common Session (November 13)
Greek reading:
300-Level: Sappho 1 (and commentary) (review); 16 (and commentary)
(review); Pindar, Olympian 10 (705 words)
200-Level: Sappho 1 (and commentary), 16 (and commentary), 31 (and
commentary) (review); Pindar, Olympian 4 (418 words)
Common Session assignment:
Read:
Sappho 1, 16, 31, and 55 in Carson's translation. Pindar's First,
Second, and Fourth Olympian Odes in Race (Pindar: Olympian Odes,
Pythian Odes (Harvard University Press, 1997).
Nancy Felson, "Vicarious
Fictive Deixis in Pindar's Pythian Four" in Harvard Studies in Classical
Philology, Vol. 99, (1999), pp. 1-31.
Please take 300-400 words and discuss the following: In this writing
assignment, you will discover the ancient Greek lyric by writing one—in
English. Read the full prompt, here.
Wednesday
“Performance and Metric Composition” (Ron Stottlemyer, Carroll
College)
Ninth Common Session (November 20)
Greek reading
300-Level:
Stesichorus P. Lille lines 201-234 [pp. 136-138 in Campbell] (164 words;
33 lines)
Aeschylus Suppliant Women 524-599 (282 words; 75 lines)
Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus 668-719 (201 words; 51 lines)
Euripides Iphigeneia at Aulis 1036-1097 (210 words; 61 lines)
200-Level:
Stesichorus P. Lille lines 201-234 [pp. 136-138 in Campbell] (164 words;
33 lines)
Aeschylus Suppliant Women 524-599 (282 words; 75 lines)
Common Session assignment:
English reading assignment (both levels):
Lucretius On the Nature of
Things 1.1-101
Theocritus Idyll 16
and
H. Parry, The Lyric Poems of
Greek Tragedy, pp. 47-70.
Watch:
Video clips: Aeschylus' Agamamenon and Gospel at Colonus
Please take 300-400 words and discuss the following: By this time in the
course, you can claim to have “received” a significant amount of Greek
lyric poetry, and over the course of your lives, no doubt, you have
passively "received" much more. For this week, as you read some
Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, draw out one similarity and one
difference for each regarding the form and content of the tragic chorus
in comparison with the other lyricists you have read in the course. More
generally, keep in mind this question: How have the tragic playwrights
and other authors assigned this week, received, reacted to, and
expanded the lyric tradition?
Wednesday
“Receiving Greek Lyric” (D. Ben DeSmidt, Carthage College)
Tenth Common Session (December 4)
Greek reading:
Sappho fragments 58-59 (the "new" Sappho) in Obbink, Dirk. 2011.
Alcaeus: 34(a), 45, 140, 208, 338, 347, 360 (and commentary [34(a), 45,
338, 347])
Common Session assignment:
Please read:
Selections of Alcaeus in Lattimore, 42-44.
Nagy, Gregory. 2007, 211-269. "Did Sappho and Alcaeus ever meet?
Symmetries of myth and ritual in performing the songs of ancient
Lesbos." In Literatur und Religion I. Wege zu
einer mythisch–rituellen
Poetik bei den Griechen. Edited by A. Bierl, R. Lämmle, K. Wesselmann.
Berlin.
Review pages 19-23 of Gregory Nagy, 2007, “Lyric and Greek Myth,” in
The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, ed. R.D. Woodward,
Cambridge University Press.
Please take 300-400 words and discuss the following:
In "Did Sappho and Alcaeus Ever Meet?" I argue that the traditions
attributed to Alcaeus and Sappho are linked by symmetries of opposed
pairs such as disequilibrium and equilibrium, profane and sacred. How
are such symmetries relevant to the relationship between ancient Greek
myth and ritual generally? I also argue that themes and contexts
associated with Dionysus help to link the songs attributed to Alcaeus and
Sappho. How is the shifting perspective of lyric relevant to the god
Dionysus? How is the fragmentation and recomposition of these poetic
personas related to multiformity and composition-in-performance?
Wednesday
“Myth and Lyric” (Greg Nagy, Harvard University)