Poetry and Its Public in Ancient Greece

From Homer to the Fifth Century
Erscheinungsjahr 1990
ISBN: 978-0-8018-4019-7
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 408 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 660 g

Brilliantly applying insights and methodologies from anthropology, literary theory, and the social sciences to the historical study of archaic lyric, Poetry and Its Public in Ancient Greece, winner of Italy's prestigious Viareggio Prize, develops a new Picture of the literary history of Greece.

An essentially practical art, ancient Greek poetry was clocely linked to the realities of social and political life and to the actual behavior of individuals within a community. Its mythological content was didactic and pedagogical. But Greek poetry differs radically from modern forms in its mode of communication: it was designed not for reading but for performance, with musical accompaniment, before an audience. In analyzing the formal and social aspects of this performance context, Gentili illuminates such topics as oral composition and improvisation, oral transmission and memory, the connections betweek poetry and music, the changing socioeconomic situation of the artist, and the relations among poets, patrons, and the public.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gentili, Bruno

Weitere Mitwirkende

Cole, A. Thomas

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprechwissenschaft, Rhetorik
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface to the English Language Edition
Translator's Introduction Abbreviations
Part I.
Chapter 1. Orality and Archaic Culture
Chapter 2. Poetry and Music
Chapter 3. Modes and Forms of Communication
Chapter 4. The Poetics of Mimesis
Chapter 5. The Sociology of Meaning
Chapter 6. The Ways of Love in the Poetry of Thiasos and Symposium
Part II.
Chapter 7. Praise and Blame
Chapter 8. Poet-Patron-Public: The Norm of the Polyp
Chapter 9. Intellectual Activity and Socioeconomic Situation
Part III.
Chapter 10. Archilochus and the Levels of Reality
Chapter 11. The Ship of State: Allegory and Its Workings
Chapter 12. Holy Sappho
Appendix: The Art of Philology
Notes
Bibliogpraphy of Works Cited
Index of Words and Subjects
Index of Passages Cited

Über Autor(innen)

Cole, A. Thomas
Thomas Cole is professor of Greek and Latin at Yale University.