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Lyric Wisdom: Alcaeus and the Tradition of Paraenetic Poetry By Lyric Wisdom: Alcaeus and the Tradition of Paraenetic Poetry By William Tortorelli B.A., University of Florida, 1996 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics at Brown University PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2011 This dissertation by William Tortorelli is accepted in its present form by the Department of Classics as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date________________ ______________________________________ Deborah Boedeker, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date________________ ______________________________________ Michael C.J. Putnam, Reader Date________________ ______________________________________ Pura Nieto Hernández, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date________________ ______________________________________ Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate School ii CURRICULUM VITAE William Tortorelli was born in 1973 in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. He studied Biochemistry and Classics at the University of Florida, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and graduated cum laude in 1996. He attained an M.A. in Classics from the same institution before pursuing further graduate study at Brown University in 1998. He has taught as a visiting instructor at Brigham Young University, Northwestern University, and Temple University. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank my advisor, Deborah Boedeker, for nurturing me intellectually throughout my exploration of archaic Greek poetry. I wish to thank Michael Putnam for his guidance as well as for being a model scholar and a model human being. I must thank Pura Nieto Hernández for being kind enough to step in toward the end of the project and guide me toward a steadier footing. All three members of my committee showed incredible patience and helped me to believe in a project I had lost all taste for. What turned out well did so through their input; what weaknesses remain are my fault alone. I thank the faculty of Classics at Brown University for a rigorous program that brought me a long way. Charles Fornara’s seminars were the highlight of my education. René Nünlist helped me with this project at the outset, as well, correcting my tone and keeping me on my toes. I owe a great deal to the Classics faculty at the University of Florida. Gareth Schmeling, in particular, has been a source of guidance, wisdom, and good humor. I cannot ever repay my debt to David Young, who first taught me ancient Greek and left me unable to continue my research in Neuroscience at the University of Florida. I am the teacher he made me, and that is all I will ever want to be. My parents deserve most of the credit for this work, for supporting me from afar in all of my academic endeavors. I am sorry that I kept them waiting so long. I also wish to thank my colleagues in the Intellectual Heritage Program at Temple University for iv their encouragement along the way. Finally, this project would never have been completed without the input, encouragement, and support of Cornelia Sydnor Roy. She is already twice the scholar I will ever be, and her insights inform much of what I do; but it is to her enormous heart that I owe this and all future work. I would not be who am I without her. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Tradition of Wisdom Literature 1.1. Near Eastern Instructional Literature 10 1.2. Instructional topoi 14 1.3. The Homeric Epics 18 1.3.1. Advisory characters in the Homeric poems 20 1.3.1.1. Phoenix (Iliad 9.434-605) 20 1.3.1.2. Nestor (Iliad 1.254-284) 22 1.3.1.3. Menelaus (Odyssey 15.68-78) 23 1.3.2. The perspective of paroemiology 24 1.4. The Seven Sages 27 1.5. Conclusion 29 Chapter 2: Paraenesis in the Archaic Period 2.1. Introduction 31 2.2. Hesiod 32 2.2.1. Genres in Hesiod 34 2.2.2. Erga: Mythological Frame 40 vi 2.2.3. Addresses to Perses 42 2.2.4. Addresses to the basileis 45 2.2.5. Erga 202-212: The fable of the hawk and the nightingale 46 2.2.6. Erga 618-694: seafaring 47 2.2.7. The Precepts of Cheiron 48 2.2.8. Erga 582-596: When and How to Relax 52 2.2.9. Hesiod’s relationship to other paraenetic poets of the archaic period 53 2.3. Elegy 54 2.3.1. Solon 54 2.3.2. Theognis 62 2.4. The Martial Poets: Callinus and Tyrtaeus 67 2.5. Iambic “advice” in Archilochus and Semonides 70 2.5.1. Paraenetic Address in Archilochus 71 2.5.2. Gnomic Statements in Archilochus 72 2.5.3. Archilochean ainos 76 2.5.4. ainos in Semonides 79 2.6. Conclusions 80 Chapter 3: Alcaeus and the Wisdom Tradition 3.1. Introduction 82 3.2. Lyric Poetry and Genre 84 3.3. Alcaeus’ audiences 88 3.3.1. The audiences of Hesiod and Alcaeus 93 vii 3.3.2. Alcaeus and the Poetic Profession 99 3.4. Gnomai in Alcaeus 101 3.5. Wine and paraenesis 108 3.6. Allegory 119 3.7. Conclusion 121 Chapter 4: Paraenesis in Horace 4.1. Introduction 123 4.2. Horace’s debt to Alcaeus 125 4.2.1. biformis vates: the role of lyric poet 129 4.3. Epodes 13 132 4.4. carpe diem 136 4.4.1. Death 137 4.4.2. Lesbian wine 145 4.5. The golden mean 149 4.6. The unripe grape 151 4.7. Sailing advice for Vergil 154 4.8. The poem for Maecenas: Odes 3.29 158 4.9. Conclusions 160 Conclusion 162 Bibliography 170 viii INTRODUCTION It is a common maxim for any study of Classical literature that “children have a teacher who educates them; men have the poets.”1 A didactic function of literature can be documented in the earliest surviving poems and in a wide variety of genres. This dissertation explores the didactic elements in the poetry of Alcaeus and argues that Alcaeus develops a poetic project of paraenesis in his extant corpus. I define paraenesis as an advisory mode that addresses general advice of a personal nature from a position of authority to a recipient figured as a child or a foolish person in need of instruction. I distinguish this paraenetic mode from other facets of instructional and wisdom literature and I attempt to characterize its deployment in archaic lyric. Alcaeus occasionally displays an intent to instruct using features of instructional poetry seen in Hesiod and the archaic elegiac poets. Analysis of the shared features will create a set of criteria for identifying a paraenetic mode in lyric poetry and for distinguishing lyric wisdom from the epic and elegiac exempla. This analysis will provide a model of Alcaeus’ advisory project that can then be applied to Horace’s Odes to identify a similar, possibly derivative, poetic project. I shall argue that Hesiod’s Works and Days (Erga, hereafter) functions as a 1 Aristophanes, Frogs 1055. prototype for wisdom literature in the Greek tradition.2 It is in part a didactic work on farming, but most of the poem is concerned with advice about life and with developing a philosophy of justice. The poem is thus less a handbook for the small farmer than a paraenetic vehicle for personal and social instruction. In this respect it is related to ancient Near Eastern examples of what Lambert hesitantly calls Wisdom Literature.3 Since we are dealing with very fine definitions of genres, subgenres, and traditions, it will be necessary to ask how genres are defined and distinguished. The theoretical work of Todorov and of Conte will be examined to demonstrate that the ancient criterion of meter alone is unsatisfactory and to dismiss the notion of proscriptive categories of genre. The three major categories of criteria for distinguishing literary genres are formal, pragmatic, and thematic.4 Formal criteria, such as meter, distinguish well between Roman elegy and epic, but can risk lumping Vergil’s Georgics and Eclogues into the same category as his Aeneid. Pragmatic criteria, such as the situation of performance, leave us with too many unanswerable questions about the archaic period.5 We simply do 2 See Ch.2.2.9 for a discussion of the Erga as such a prototype, distinct from the advisory mode represented in the Homeric epics (as discussed in Ch.2.2.1), and of the implications of this designation. 3 Lambert 1960, 1-2, says, of the term Wisdom Literature, “as used for a literary genre the term belongs to Hebraic studies and is applied to Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.” His main objection to using the term for Near Eastern literature is that, while the Hebrew Bible equates wisdom and morality, the Babylonian terms for wisdom are “only rarely used with a moral content.” This objection could apply to Greek “Wisdom Literature” as well, but I will use the term for a tradition that includes concern for instruction in morality and in the other general areas which make one “wise.” Lambert, too, concedes that Wisdom Literature “may be retained as a convenient short description” (Lambert 1960, 1) and uses it in the title of his book. Fish 1956, 286-287, on the other hand, criticizes Van Dijk for making the category of “Sagesse Suméro- Accadienne” too inclusive. 4 Conte 1994, 4. 5 The Alexandrian scholars develop several taxonomies of poetry which vacillate between these criteria of form and function. They prove inadequate especially where they concern genres whose performative context was no longer fully understood, such as paeans, dithyrambs, and partheneia (a list which could 2 not know enough about their contemporary audiences or the potential for dissemination through space and time as the archaic poets saw it.
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