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Lectures on Greek Poetry Lectures on Greek Poetry 1 2 ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY IN POZNAŃ CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY SERIES NO. 35 GERSON SCHADE Lectures on Greek Poetry POZNAŃ 2016 3 ABSTRACT. Gerson Schade, Lectures on Greek Poetry [Wykłady o poezji greckiej]. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Poznań 2016. Pp. 226. Classical Philology Series No. 35. ISBN 978-83-232-3108-0. ISSN 0554-8160. Text in English with a summary in German. The series of lectures contained in this volume were written for students at Adam Mic- kiewicz University. A first group of these lectures are intended to serve as an introduc- tion to Greek poetry of the archaic, classical and pre-Hellenistic age. They treat a selection of texts, ranging from the eighth to the fourth century BC. A second group of these lec- tures focuses on Homer’s Iliad: while the whole work is treated, the lectures follow the story of Achilles, which is developed mainly in five books. All texts are provided in trans- lation, and secondary literature is discussed and used to make the texts more accessible for young students interested in poetry. The lectures introduce to some of the main issues that characterise the texts, such as their relationship to their primary audience, the impact of orality, and the influence of the eastern poetic tradition on the Greeks. Where appro- priate, the lectures also treat the interrelation between various texts, their intertextuality. They try to answer the questions of how poetry did work then, and why these texts do matter for the European poetic tradition. Schade Gerson, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology, Institute of Classical Philology, Fredry 10, 61-701 Poznań, Poland Reviewers: prof. dr hab. Krystyna Bartol prof. dr hab. Jadwiga Czerwińska, UŁ prof. dr hab. Mikołaj Szymański, UW © Gerson Schade 2016 This edition © Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Adam Mickiewicz University Press, Poznań 2016 Publication jointly financed by the Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology and the Institute of Polish Philology at Adam Mickiewicz University Published on the basis of an authorised copy Cover design: Helena Oszmiańska-Napierała Technical editing: Dorota Borowiak Digital formatting: Eugeniusz Strykowski ISBN 978-83-232-3108-0 ISSN 0554-8160 WYDAWNICTWO NAUKOWE UNIWERSYTETU IM. ADAMA MICKIEWICZA W POZNANIU UL. FREDRY 10, 61-701 POZNAŃ www.press.amu.edu.pl Sekretariat: tel. 61 829 46 46, faks 61 829 46 47, e-mail: [email protected] Dział Promocji i Sprzedaży: tel. 61 829 46 40, e-mail: [email protected] Wydanie I. Ark. wyd. 15,50. Ark. druk. 14,125. DRUK I OPRAWA: EXPOL, WŁOCŁAWEK, UL. BRZESKA 4 4 Contents Preface ............................................................................ 9 Greek epic, lyric, and tragic poetry from Homer to Euripides and Timotheus ... 11 Greek literature and cultural history ......................................... 11 Epic poetry: Homer .......................................................... 26 Epic poetry: Hesiod .......................................................... 41 Lyric poetry: Monody ........................................................ 49 Lyric poetry: Choral .......................................................... 66 Tragic poetry: Aeschylus ..................................................... 79 Tragic poetry: Sophocles ..................................................... 93 Tragic poetry: Euripides ..................................................... 105 ‘Old’ and ‘new’ in Greek poetry at the end of the classical age ............. 117 The story of Achilles ............................................................. 133 Iliad 1 ......................................................................... 133 Iliad 9 ......................................................................... 152 Iliad 16 ........................................................................ 168 Iliad 19 ........................................................................ 185 Iliad 22 ........................................................................ 202 Vorlesungen über griechische Dichtung (Zusammenfassung) ................. 223 Lectures on Greek Poetry (Summary) ............................................ 225 5 6 to the memory of my father 7 8 Preface This monograph, Lectures on Greek Poetry, contains the revised version of lectures delivered at Adam Mickiewicz-University during the Academic Year 2013/14 and 2014/15. It consists of two main parts. A first series of nine lectures gives a survey on epic, lyric, and tragic poetry from Homer to Euripides and Timotheus. Its first part, a lecture on Greek literature and cultural history, introduces into some of the main problems related to Greek poetry in antiquity. A second series of five lectures outlines the story of Achilles and may serve as an introduction to Homer’s Iliad. After asking a surprising range of questions during the lectures, the stu- dents expressed a strong desire to have a printed manuscript. It may help them to follow the argument better, they said, and it would enable them to read further on some points of particular interest to them. My colleagues supported the idea of making the text available in printed form, and I’m very grateful to them for their assistance. It took some time to reshape the text which still shows traces of a lecture. I’m very glad that C.J. Hopkins could find the time to have a look at the English. Berlin, August 2015 9 10 Greek epic, lyric, and tragic poetry from Homer to Euripides and Timotheus GREEK LITERATURE AND CULTURAL HISTORY Greek literature in antiquity is closely related to the history of Greek cul- ture. It cannot be properly understood without constantly referring to the cultural history of the Greeks, people who not only settled in the whole Mediterranean world from the eighth century BC onwards, but also estab- lished the first European cultural centre in the city of Athens in the course of the fifth and fourth century BC. Even a long time after any Greek political hegemony had disappeared, their language still was not only spoken by the educated Romans in particular, but also used by speakers of different lan- guages in general as a common medium of communication. A few words on Greek literature come first, followed by remarks on cul- tural history, and finally a case-study – the interpretation of Homer’s work as seen by Milman Parry – to illustrate their relationship. 1. The term Greek literature comprises the period from the eighth century BC until the fifth century AD. The authors writing in ancient Greek come from various areas in the Mediterranean world; the works are poetic texts as well as prose, though prose is seemingly not written down from the very beginning. For a long time, Greek authors composed in their local languages, as there were Ionic, Aeolic, and Doric, or to be more precise, these early poets used literary dialects stemming from them, the most important of which was called Homeric, named after the supposed poet of the earliest Greek poetry. Attic, the language taught at western European universities since the sixteenth century of our time, only became important with the rise of Athens in the fifth century. It had a major effect on the later Greek lan- guage, which was used by the authors of a text labelled by the Christians as ‘New Testament’. 11 The early period, the so-called archaic literature, is dominated by figures from Ionia, i.e. the western coast of modern Turkey, or from coastal islands (e.g., Lesbos); some authors come from the Greek mainland, i.e. the Island of Pelops, the Peloponnese, but there are also some from Sicily, the main place in the West colonized by Greeks. Thus the picture shows several places of literary production, though for lack of information it is somehow incom- plete: our knowledge depends largely on rather short citations and not really satisfying scholarly work in antiquity. Papyri which emerged from the sands of Egypt and were taken away to European collections from the end of the eighteenth century onwards helped to fill some gaps. Towards the end of the sixth century and of the archaic period, Ionia saw an explosion of abstract theorizing, much of it conducted in prose: cosmolo- gists (e.g. Anaximander and Anaximenes) turned up, as did philosophers like Heraclitus, as well as intellectual poets as Xenophanes. The classical period, i.e. the fifth and fourth centuries, is largely domin- ated by the cultural hegemony of Athens, a fact that introduced the opposi- tions of centre and fringe, urban and provincial, mainstream and provoca- tion, conservatism and innovation, etc., into the history of European literature. Many highly prominent writers lived there, and most of the best- known were born there – e.g., the tragedian Sophocles, the historian Thu- cydides, the comedian Aristophanes, or the philosopher Plato. During the fourth century, however, Athens lost its primary role, and other centres of literary production emerged, e.g. the court of the Macedonian kings. From the third century BC onwards a new trend in literature emerged from Alexandria, one of the many towns famously ‘founded’ by Alexander the Great on his tour to India. From then on, in Egyptian Alexandria a library became the centre of lit- erary production. A bookish turn took place, and an archive became the source and inspiration of the so-called Hellenistic or Alexandrian literature. Though central figures of Hellenistic poetry in the third century are not con- nected to ‘the Library’ (as Theocritus and Aratus), one may well speak of ‘the Archive’
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