DOCSLIB.ORG

Music and Text in Pindar, Pythians 2 and 12

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Music and Text in Pindar, Pythians 2 and 12 The Classical Quarterly http://journals.cambridge.org/CAQ Additional services for The Classical Quarterly: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here EPINICIAN VARIATIONS: MUSIC AND TEXT IN PINDAR, PYTHIANS 2 AND 12 Tom Phillips The Classical Quarterly / Volume 63 / Issue 01 / May 2013, pp 37 - 56 DOI: 10.1017/S0009838812000791, Published online: 24 April 2013 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009838812000791 How to cite this article: Tom Phillips (2013). EPINICIAN VARIATIONS: MUSIC AND TEXT IN PINDAR, PYTHIANS 2 AND 12. The Classical Quarterly, 63, pp 37-56 doi:10.1017/ S0009838812000791 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAQ, IP address: 128.103.149.52 on 21 Aug 2014 Classical Quarterly 63.1 37–56 (2013) Printed in Great Britain 37 doi:10.1017/S0009838812000791 EPINICIAN VARIATIONS: MUSIC AND TEXT IN PINDAR, PYTHIANS 2 AND 12* The importance of music for epinician, as for all other types of choral performance in Archaic and Classical Greece, has long been recognized, but the exiguousness of the evidence for the compositional principles behind such music, and for what these poems actually sounded like in performance, has limited scholarly enquiries. Examination of Pindar’s texts themselves for evidence of his musical practices was for a long time dominated by extensive and often inconclusive debate about the relations between metres and modes.1 More recently scholars have begun to explore Pindar’s relations to contemporary developments in musical performance, and in doing so have opened up new questions about how music affected audiences as aesthetically and culturally significant in its own right, and how it interacted with the language of the text.2 This article will investigate the performance scenarios of two of Pindar’s epi- nicians, arguing that in each case the poems contain indications of specific musical accompaniments, and use these scenarios as a starting point for engaging with wider interpretative questions. The self-referential dimension of these compositions will be of particular importance; I shall argue that Pindar deployed a type of musical intertex- tuality, in which his compositions draw on pre-existing melodic structures, utilizing their cultural associations for the purposes of his own pieces, a process crucial to the dynamics of performance of the poems concerned.3 By doing so I shall attempt to reach a better understanding of the roles played by music in epinician performance and of Pindar’s place in relation to the musical culture in which he worked. PYTHIAN 12 IN PERFORMANCE This poem was composed for Midas of Acragas, victor in the auletic contest at Delphi in 490. It presents an aition of the ‘many-headed nomos’, invented by Athena from the * I am grateful to Armand D’Angour, Tim Rood, Oliver Thomas, Tim Whitmarsh and the journal’s anonymous referee for their comments on earlier drafts of this piece. 1 See L. Prauscello, ‘Epinician sounds: Pindar and musical innovation’, in P. Agócs, C. Carey and R. Rawles (edd.), Reading the Victory Ode (Cambridge, 2012), 58–82 for discussion of this problem, with detailed bibliography. I share her scepticism about the validity of seeing connections between particular modes and metres. 2 Studies include L. Pearson, ‘The dynamics of Pindar’s music: ninth Nemean and third Olympian’, ICS 2 (1977), 54–69; A. D’Angour, ‘How the dithyramb got its shape’, CQ 47 (1997), 331–51; J. Porter, ‘Lasus of Hermione, Pindar and the riddle of S’, CQ 57 (2007), 1–21; Prauscello (n. 1). See in general M.L. West, Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992), 344–7. 3 Cf. D’Angour (n. 2) on the role of self-referentiality in Pindar’s response in Dith. 2 to Lasus of Hermione’s alterations of dithyrambic performance practice. This analysis is extended by Porter (n. 2), 6–10, who sees Pindar’s rhetoric in Dith. 2 as proclaiming an allegiance to a new Lasian ‘poetics of sound’. 38 TOM PHILLIPS lament of the Gorgons when Medusa was vanquished by Perseus. At 22–3 Athena is described as naming the nomos she has created: ἀλλά νιν ɛὑροῖσ’ ἀνδράσι θνατοῖς ἔχɛιν,|ὠνύμασɛνκɛφαλᾶν πολλᾶν νόμον. The aetiologizing here picks up on the pre- vious mention of the snakes’ heads (ὑπό τ’ ἀπλάτοις ὀφίων κɛφαλαῖς, 9),4 but 22–3 may also refer to the musical accompaniment of the performance. Aulos accompaniment would obviously be appropriate for a celebration of an aulete; indeed, it is hard to ima- gine the aulos not being used for this poem, whether accompanied by other instruments or not.5 Our sources give tantalizingly brief evidence for the use of nomoi. Ps.-Plutarch, De musica 1133F mentions that Stesichorus ‘made use of’ the so-called ‘Chariot nomos’: Στησίχορος ὁἹμɛραῖος οὔτ’ Ὀρφέα οὔτɛ Τέρπανδρον οὔτ’ Ἀρχίλοχον οὔτɛ Θαλήταν ἐμιμήσατο, ἀλλ’ Ὄλυμπον, χρησάμɛνος τῷἉρματɛίῳ νόμῳ καὶ τῷ κατὰ δάκτυλον ɛἴδɛι, ὅ τινɛς ἐξ Ὀρθίου νόμου φασὶν ɛἶναι. Stesichorus of Himera took as his model not Orpheus or Terpander or Archilochus or Thaletas, but Olympus, since Stesichorus used the Harmateios nomos and the dactylic species of rhythm, which some people say is derived from the Orthios nomos.6 Given that Stesichorus was not known as a composer of auletic nomoi, this suggests that ‘its identifiable features were transferable to a different musical medium’, in the case of Stesichorus, to solo performance on the cithara.7 The scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs 1282, commenting on a passage in which Euripides alludes to Aeschylus’ penchant for drawing on citharodic melodies (μὴ πρίν γ’ ἀκούσῃςχἀτέραν στάσιν μɛλῶν | ἐκτῶν κιθαρῳδικῶν νόμων ɛἰργασμένην, 1281–2), make a similar claim about Aeschylus’ musical practice: Τιμαχίδας γράφɛι, ὡςτῷὀρθίῳ νόμῳ κɛχρημένου τοῦ Αἰσχύλου καὶἀνατɛταμένως.8 The sources tell us nothing about how poets ‘use’ nomoi, but they alert us to the possibility of the use of nomoi by other poets. It is clear from the sources that nomoi were melodic sequences which could be adapted to different per- formance modalities. West calls them ‘traditional patterns in which music was cast … schemes used for the singing of all kinds of verse’.9 Their rhythmic and melodic flexi- bility would have allowed them to be expanded upon, rearranged and varied according to the needs of the particular composer or performer. There is a connection here with the modalities of performance which Armand D’Angour has recently suggested were oper- ative in the Archaic and Classical periods, chiefly a type of melodizing practice which 4 See B. Gentili, P. Angeli Bernardini, E. Cingano and P. Giannini, Pindaro. Le Pitiche (Milan, 1995), on 23. 5 See e.g. F. Frontisi-Ducroux, ‘Athéna et l’invention de la flûte’, Musica e storia 2 (1994), 239– 57, at 260; A. Morrison, Performances and Audiences in Pindar’s Sicilian Victory Odes (London, 2007), 82–4. Both hypothesize choral performance with aulos accompaniment. 6 All translations are from A. Barker, Greek Musical Writings: I (Cambridge, 1984). 7 Barker (n. 6), 253. See further M.L. West, ‘Stesichorus’, CQ 21 (1971), 309. On the harmateios nomos cf. S. Hagel, Ancient Greek Music (Cambridge, 2010), 402–3. 8 See T. Fleming, ‘The musical nomos in Aeschylus’ Oresteia’, CJ 72.3 (1977), 222–33 and J. Danielewicz, ‘Il Nomos nella parodia di Aristofane (Ran. 1264 sgg.)’,inLirica greca e latina: atti del convegno di studi polacco-italiano (Rome, 1990), 131–42 for detailed discussion. 9 West (n. 7), 309–10. See F. Lasserre, Plutarque: de la musique (Olten, 1954), 22–9, and T. Power, The Culture of Kitharôidia (Washington, 2010), 215–24, on nomoi in general. While we should be sceptical of Lasserre’s validation of ancient classification of nomoi and of his thesis of the wide and pervasive influence of nomoi on musico-poetic practice in the Archaic and Classical period (see the comments of Barker [n. 6], 249–55), this should not lead to the conclusion that nomoi were never utilized in the manner indicated by the sources. EPINICIAN VARIATIONS 39 consisted in applying a given set of notes in different ways to different lines according to the pitch profiles of the words to which the melody was set. Musical training was not a matter of learning melodies specifically tailored to individual poems, but rather learning to apply a given note group, rather than fixed sequence, to variant word structures.10 Ps.-Plutarch, De musica 1133D discusses the ‘many-headed nomos’, ascribing its invention to the semi-legendary Phrygian aulete Olympus and reporting that it was dedi- cated to Apollo. The scholiast on Pythian 12.39c identifies this nomos with the one whose invention and naming by Athena is described at 12.22–3.11 The situation is com- plicated by the presence in the tradition of the ‘Athena nomos’, described at De musica 1143B–C. Given the fluidity and imprecision with which nomoi were classified in later antiquity,12 and the role ascribed to Athena in Pythian 12 as the inventor of the ‘many- headed nomos’, it seems reasonable to suppose that ‘Athena nomos’ and ‘many-headed nomos’ are different names for the same piece, a conflation which arises from their structural similarity and from Athena’s prominent role in both, with ‘Athena nomos’ perhaps acting as a gloss on the more obscure name.13 This identification is reinforced by the attribution of both nomoi to Olympus. I suggest that it was this nomos, on which Pindar drew for the musical accompaniment of Pythian 12. A poem centred around Athena’s invention of the aulos might be expected to make use of a well-known melodic and rhythmical structure associated with the goddess, allowing the poem to draw on the musical associations of such a piece.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Some Problems in Prosody
    1903·] Some Problems in Prosody. 33 ARTICLE III. SOME PROBLEMS IN PROSODY. BY PI10PlCSSOI1 R.aBUT W. KAGOUN, PR.D. IT has been shown repeatedly, in the scientific world, that theory must be supplemented by practice. In some cases, indeed, practice has succeeded in obtaining satisfac­ tory results after theory has failed. Deposits of Urate of Soda in the joints, caused by an excess of Uric acid in the blood, were long held to be practically insoluble, although Carbonate of Lithia was supposed to have a solvent effect upon them. The use of Tetra·Ethyl-Ammonium Hydrox­ ide as a medicine, to dissolve these deposits and remove the gout and rheumatism which they cause, is said to be due to some experiments made by Edison because a friend of his had the gout. Mter scientific men had decided that electric lighting could never be made sufficiently cheap to be practicable, he discovered the incandescent lamp, by continuing his experiments in spite of their ridicule.1 Two young men who "would not accept the dictum of the authorities that phosphorus ... cannot be expelled from iron ores at a high temperature, ... set to work ... to see whether the scientific world had not blundered.'" To drive the phosphorus out of low-grade ores and convert them into Bessemer steel, required a "pot-lining" capable of enduring 25000 F. The quest seemed extraordinary, to say the least; nevertheless the task was accomplished. This appears to justify the remark that "Thomas is our modem Moses";8 but, striking as the figure is, the young ICf.
    [Show full text]
  • Convergences and Divergences Between God and Hero in the Mnesiepes Inscription of Paros
    Convergences and Divergences Between God and Hero in the Mnesiepes Inscription of Paros The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Nagy, Gregory. 2008. Convergences and divergences between god and hero in the Mnesiepes Inscription of Paros. In Archilochus and his Age: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Archaeology of Paros and the Cyclades (Athens), ed. D. Katsonopoulou, I.Petropoulos, and S. Katsarou, 259-265. Athens: Archaeological Institute of Paros and Cyclades. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42665437 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#OAP 1 Convergences and divergences between god and hero in the Mnesiepes Inscription of Paros Gregory Nagy [[This article was first published in 2008 in Archilochus and his Age II (ed. D. Katsonopoulou, I. Petropoulos, S. Katsarou) 259-265. The original pagination of the article will be indicated in this electronic version by way of curly brackets (“{“ and “}”). For example, “{259|260}” indicates where p. 259 of the printed article ends and p. 260 begins.]] In his pathfinding book, Archilochos Heros, Diskin Clay has questioned the applicability of a well-known formula for distinguishing between the cult of heroes and the cult of gods in archaic, classical, and postclassical Greek historical contexts.1 The formula is derived from the use of the words thuein / theos and enagizein / hērōs by Herodotus (2.44.5) in distinguishing between one cult of Herakles as a god and another cult of Herakles as a hero.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rhythm of the Gods' Voice. the Suggestion of Divine Presence
    T he Rhythm of the Gods’ Voice. The Suggestion of Divine Presence through Prosody* E l ritmo de la voz de los dioses. La sugerencia de la presencia divina a través de la prosodia Ronald Blankenborg Radboud University Nijmegen [email protected] Abstract Resumen I n this article, I draw attention to the E ste estudio se centra en la meticulosidad gods’ pickiness in the audible flow of de los dioses en el flujo audible de sus expre- their utterances, a prosodic characteris- siones, una característica prosódica del habla tic of speech that evokes the presence of que evoca la presencia divina. La poesía hexa- the divine. Hexametric poetry itself is the métrica es en sí misma el lenguaje de la per- * I want to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of ARYS for their suggestions and com- ments. https://doi.org/10.20318/arys.2020.5310 - Arys, 18, 2020 [123-154] issn 1575-166x 124 Ronald Blankenborg language of permanency, as evidenced by manencia, como pone de manifiesto la litera- wisdom literature, funereal and dedicatory tura sapiencial y las inscripciones funerarias inscriptions: epic poetry is the embedded y dedicatorias: la poesía épica es el lenguaje direct speech of a goddess. Outside hex- directo integrado de una diosa. Más allá de ametric poetry, the gods’ special speech la poesía hexamétrica, el habla especial de los is primarily expressed through prosodic dioses es principalmente expresado mediante means, notably through a shift in rhythmic recursos prosódicos, especialmente a través profile. Such a shift deliberately captures, de un cambio en el perfil rítmico.
    [Show full text]
  • Poetic Diction, Poetic Discourse and the Poetic Register
    proceedings of the British Academy, 93.21-93 Poetic Diction, Poetic Discourse and the Poetic Register R. G. G. COLEMAN Summary. A number of distinctive characteristics can be iden- tified in the language used by Latin poets. To start with the lexicon, most of the words commonly cited as instances of poetic diction - ensis; fessus, meare, de, -que. -que etc. - are demonstrably archaic, having been displaced in the prose register. Archaic too are certain grammatical forms found in poetry - e.g. auldi, gen. pl. superum, agier, conticuere - and syntactic constructions like the use of simple cases for pre- I.positional phrases and of infinitives instead of the clausal structures of classical prose. Poets in all languages exploit the linguistic resources of past as well as present, but this facility is especially prominent where, as in Latin, the genre traditions positively encouraged imitatio. Some of the syntactic character- istics are influenced wholly or partly by Greek, as are other ingredients of the poetic register. The classical quantitative metres, derived from Greek, dictated the rhythmic pattern of the Latin words. Greek loan words and especially proper names - Chaoniae, Corydon, Pyrrha, Tempe, Theseus, Zephym etc. -brought exotic tones to the aural texture, often enhanced by Greek case forms. They also brought an allusive richness to their contexts. However, the most impressive charac- teristics after the metre were not dependent on foreign intrusion: the creation of imagery, often as an essential feature of a poetic argument, and the tropes of semantic transfer - metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche - were frequently deployed through common words. In fact no words were too prosaic to appear in even the highest poetic contexts, always assuming their metricality.
    [Show full text]
  • The Poetry Handbook I Read / That John Donne Must Be Taken at Speed : / Which Is All Very Well / Were It Not for the Smell / of His Feet Catechising His Creed.)
    Introduction his book is for anyone who wants to read poetry with a better understanding of its craft and technique ; it is also a textbook T and crib for school and undergraduate students facing exams in practical criticism. Teaching the practical criticism of poetry at several universities, and talking to students about their previous teaching, has made me sharply aware of how little consensus there is about the subject. Some teachers do not distinguish practical critic- ism from critical theory, or regard it as a critical theory, to be taught alongside psychoanalytical, feminist, Marxist, and structuralist theor- ies ; others seem to do very little except invite discussion of ‘how it feels’ to read poem x. And as practical criticism (though not always called that) remains compulsory in most English Literature course- work and exams, at school and university, this is an unwelcome state of affairs. For students there are many consequences. Teachers at school and university may contradict one another, and too rarely put the problem of differing viewpoints and frameworks for analysis in perspective ; important aspects of the subject are omitted in the confusion, leaving otherwise more than competent students with little or no idea of what they are being asked to do. How can this be remedied without losing the richness and diversity of thought which, at its best, practical criticism can foster ? What are the basics ? How may they best be taught ? My own answer is that the basics are an understanding of and ability to judge the elements of a poet’s craft. Profoundly different as they are, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Pope, Dickinson, Eliot, Walcott, and Plath could readily converse about the techniques of which they are common masters ; few undergraduates I have encountered know much about metre beyond the terms ‘blank verse’ and ‘iambic pentameter’, much about form beyond ‘couplet’ and ‘sonnet’, or anything about rhyme more complicated than an assertion that two words do or don’t.
    [Show full text]
  • Audible Punctuation Performative Pause In
    PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/140838 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-09-25 and may be subject to change. AUDIBLE PUNCTUATION Performative Pause in Homeric Prosody Audible Punctuation: Performative Pause in Homeric Prosody Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. Th.L.M. Engelen, volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 21 mei 2015 om 14.30 uur precies door Ronald Blankenborg geboren op 23 maart 1971 te Eibergen Promotoren: Prof. dr. A.P.M.H. Lardinois Prof. dr. J.B. Lidov (City University New York, Verenigde Staten) Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. M.G.M. van der Poel Prof. dr. E.J. Bakker (Yale University, Verenigde Staten) Prof. dr. M. Janse (Universiteit Gent, België) Copyright©Ronald Blankenborg 2015 ISBN 978-90-823119-1-4 [email protected] [email protected] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. Printed by Maarse Printing Cover by Gijs de Reus Audible Punctuation: Performative Pause in Homeric Prosody Doctoral Thesis to obtain the degree of doctor from Radboud University Nijmegen on the authority of the Rector Magnificus prof.
    [Show full text]
  • Archilochus 8 IEG: a Grey, Fair-Tressed Sea, Or a Goddess?
    ARTÍCULO / ARTICLE Synthesis, vol. 24 nº 1, e010, junio 2017. ISSN 1851-779X Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. Centro de Estudios Helénicos Archilochus 8 IEG: A grey, fair-tressed sea, or A goddess? Paula da Cunha Corrêa * * University of São Paulo, Brazil PALABRAS CLAVE RESUMEN Este artículo examina el fragmento 8 IEG de Arquíloco, centrado en su recepción en la Arquíloco erudición clásica y, tal vez, en el poema de Mallarmé, “A la nue accablante tu. .”. Elegía Mallarmé KEYWORDS ABSTRACT Archilochus This paper examines Archilochus’ fragment 8 IEG, focusing on it’ s reception in classical Elegy scholarship and, perhaps, in Mallarmé’s “A la nue accablante tu . .”. Mallarmé Cita sugerida: Cunha Corrêa, P. de. (2017). Archilochus 8 IEG: A grey, fair-tressed sea, or A goddess?. Synthesis, 24(1), e010. https://doi.org/10.24215/1851779Xe010 Esta obra está bajo licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.es_AR Synthesis, vol. 24 nº1, e010, junio 2017. ISSN 1851-779X There is a significant group of fragments by Archilochus on shipwrecks and death at sea. The majority of these are composed in elegiac meter, and are elegies in the modern sense of the term, as far as their matter relates to lament and funeral song. Although many editors quote in association to these fragments a passage in which Pseudo- Longinus,1 Sublime 10.7, mentions a poem of Archilochus on the death of his brother-in-law in a shipwreck, the reference in Pseudo-Longinus is vague and does not allow one to associate it specifically to any of the remaining verses.2 Therefore, in spite of the efforts to unite the elegiac fragments of Archilochus on shipwrecks, or those that could relate to such subject matter, there is no consensus.
    [Show full text]
  • The World of Greek Religion and Mythology
    Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Herausgeber/Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich) Mitherausgeber/Associate Editors Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) ∙ James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg) ∙ Janet Spittler (Charlottesville, VA) J. Ross Wagner (Durham, NC) 433 Jan N. Bremmer The World of Greek Religion and Mythology Collected Essays II Mohr Siebeck Jan N. Bremmer, born 1944; Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Groningen. orcid.org/0000-0001-8400-7143 ISBN 978-3-16-154451-4 / eISBN 978-3-16-158949-2 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-158949-2 ISSN 0512-1604 / eISSN 2568-7476 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbiblio- graphie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2019 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany. www.mohrsiebeck.com This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitt- ed by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particular- ly to reproductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset using Stempel Garamond typeface and printed on non-aging pa- per by Gulde Druck in Tübingen. It was bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany. in memoriam Walter Burkert (1931–2015) Albert Henrichs (1942–2017) Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood (1945–2007) Preface It is a pleasure for me to offer here the second volume of my Collected Essays, containing a sizable part of my writings on Greek religion and mythology.1 Greek religion is not a subject that has always held my interest and attention.
    [Show full text]
  • Downloaded September 12, 2014, Itunes
    Hearing Meter from Different Angles: Interactive Vocal Meter and Hypermeter in Selected Songs and Their Covers by Kristi Dawn Hardman B. Mus., University of Manitoba, 2013 B. Ed., University of Manitoba, 2013 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Music) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) March 2016 © Kristi Dawn Hardman, 2016 Abstract A vocal melody is a setting of poetry to musical rhythms and pitches. The poetry and the musical melody have distinct accentuation patterns, yet as musicians we too often only analyse the musical events of a vocal melody in order to determine its rhythmic structure and meter, while ignoring the meter of the poetic text. This thesis examines how the meter of the poetic text interacts with the meter of the musical melody to inform our overall perception of the vocal melody’s meter. Through comparison of popular songs with cover versions that adopt a different meter, it investigates how the same poetic meter interacts with different musical meters, and studies the resulting effects on vocal meter and hypermeter. The methodology can be applied to a wide range of popular music genres, so each chapter examines an original song and cover versions representing different genres. The first chapter establishes the new methodology developed in this thesis. The concepts of poetic meter, melodic meter, and the resulting “interactive vocal meter” are introduced and applied in the analysis of three versions of Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” This chapter also explores some novel ways in which we can interpret syncopations and hypermeter.
    [Show full text]
  • Gostin Front
    Excerpted from © by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. May not be copied or reused without express written permission of the publisher. click here to BUY THIS BOOK Introduction I The early Alexandrian period under the first three Ptolemies (ca. 300–221 b.c.e.) saw not only an awakened interest in the preservation and classification of earlier Greek poetry but also a desire to refashion, even reinvent, many centuries-old types of poetry in a new cultural and geographical setting. The poets of this period composed hymns, epini- cians, and epigrams, to mention only a few genres, which, while often recalling earlier literary models through formal imitation and verbal allusion, at the same time exhibit marked variation and innovation, whether in the assembling of generic features, in disparities of tone, or in choice of theme or emphasis. This memorialization of earlier art forms calls attention both to the poetic models, their authors, and their artistic traditions, and also to the act of memorialization itself, the poet, and his own place in that same poetic tradition. Some of these genres that the poets in early Ptolemaic Alexandria took up are known to have had a continuous life on the Greek main- land and elsewhere in the Greek-speaking world. Others had fallen into disuse already by the fifth century, but were now revived in Alexandria for a new audience, one of cosmopolitan nature and attached to a royal court and its institutions, including the Mouseion. Among these latter genres was iambos, a genre of stichic poetry recited to the aulos (oboe) and associated above all with Archilochus of Paros, Hipponax of Eph- esus, and the cultural milieu of seventh- and sixth-century Ionia.1 Iambic poetry of the archaic period is a genre that demonstrates tremendous variation and thus defies narrow or easy demarcation.2 In 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hedgehog and the Fox
    The Hedgehog and the Fox A queer combination of the brain of an English chemist with the soul of an Indian Buddhist. E. M. de Vogüé 1 I There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilo chus which says: ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.’2 Scholars have differed about the correct interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the 1 ‘On dirait l’esprit d’un chimiste anglais dans l’âme d’un bouddhiste hindou; se charge qui pourra d’expliquer cet étrange accouplment’: Le Roman russe (Paris, 1886), 282. 2 ‘po*ll’ o i# d ’ a$lw* phx, a$ ll’ e$ci&nov e=n me*ga.’ Archilochus fragment 201 in M. L. West (ed.), Iambi et elegi graeci ante Alexandrum cantati, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Oxford, 1989). [The fragment was preserved in a collection of proverbs by the Greek Sophist Zenobius (5. 68), who says that it is found in both Archilochus and Homer – West, op. cit., vol. 2 (Oxford, 1992), ‘Homerus’ fragment 5. Since it is iambic rather than dactylic in metre, the attribu- tion to Homer is likely to mean that it appeared in the (now thought pseudo-Homeric) comic epic poem Margites, probably written later than Archilochus’ poem. See e.g. C. M. Bowra, ‘The Fox and the Hedgehog’, Classical Quarterly 34 (1940), 26–9 (see 26), an article reprinted with revisions in Bowra’s On Greek Margins (Oxford, 1970), 59–66 (see 59), and evidently unknown to Berlin.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter Four
    chapter four ARCHILOCHUS . The tradition According to tradition, Archilochus was the son of a nobleman Telesi- cles and a slave woman Enipo. He was born and grew up in Paros, and had at least one sister and a brother. When Archilochus was a young man he met the Muses and received a lyre and a gift of song in exchange of a cow. Shortly after this event Archilochus’ father Telesicles received an oracle which foretold the future immortal fame of his son. Although Archilochus was of high origin and became a well-known poet, he remained poor and served as a soldier. For some time he lived in Tha- sos where the Parians, led by Archilochus’ father or the poet himself had founded a colony. ArchilochusfellinlovewithNeoboulethedaughterofLycambes.They were about to get married when Lycambes changed his mind and refused to give her to the poet. In his fury Archilochus composed such slanderous and fiery verses that Lycambes and/or his daughter(s) hanged themselves. Although his poetic talent was in general regarded very highly, his harsh ways and outrageous subject matter were often criticized. The Spartans, for example, considered his verses about fleeing from the battlefield and leaving his shield to the enemy so dangerous that they ordered him or his poems to be banished from the city lest his immoral views should indoctrinate their children. Archilochus was killed in battle by a Naxian man called Calondas nicknamed Corax. His death saddened Apollo so that when Calondas came to Delphi for advice, the Pythia refused to let him, “the killer of the servant of the Muses,” enter the temple.
    [Show full text]