Pindar and the poetics of permanence / Henry Spelman
- Author
- Spelman, Henry L. (Henry Lawlor), 1987-
- Published
- Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2018.
- Copyright Date
- ©2018
- Edition
- First edition.
- Physical Description
- xvi, 356 pages ; 23 cm.
- Series
- Contents
- Machine generated contents note: pt. ONE PINDAR'S AUDIENCES -- Introduction to Part One -- I.Secondary Audiences -- 1.Knowledge of first performance -- 2.Knowledge of external realities -- A.Public matters -- B.Individual circumstances -- C.Mythology -- 3.Difficult pleasures -- 4.Orality and writing -- II.Vital Light in Isthmian 4 -- III.Event and Artefact: From Performance to Permanence -- 1.Isthmian 2.43-8 -- 2.Olympian 10.91-6 -- 3.Bacchylides 13.220-31 -- 4.Pindar fr. 52o -- 5.Nemean 3.76-84 -- 6.Bacchylides 3.90-8 -- 7.Conclusions -- IV.The Poetics of Permanence -- 1.Time travel and tradition: Pythian 1 -- 2.The victor's perspective: Nemean 4 -- 3.Epinician lessons: Pythian 6 -- 4.Epic analogues: Pythian 3 -- 5.Epigrammatic interactions: Nemean 5 -- 6.Interwoven perspectives: Nemean 7 and Paean 6 -- V.Genre and Tradition -- 1.Genre -- A.Occasions and audiences in cultic poetry -- B.Permanence outside epinician -- I.Paean 7b -- II.Dithyramb 2 (fr. 70b) -- C.Conclusions: rhetoric and reality -- 2.Tradition -- A.Alcman and Stesichorus -- B.Alcaeus and Sappho -- C.Ibycus and Anacreon -- D.Common considerations -- E.Conclusions: development and continuity -- 3.Coda -- pt. TWO PINDAR AND THE TRADITIONS OF LYRIC -- Introduction to Part Two -- VI.The Epinician Past -- 1.Epinician origins in history: athletics, Ibycus, Simonides -- 2.Epinician origins in epinician: from revel to literature -- A.Nemean 8 -- B.Olympian 10 -- 3.The flowers of new poems: Olympian 9 -- VII.The Epinician Present -- 1.Generic references -- 2.The poet's career -- 3.Patrons and communities -- 4.Other eulogists -- 5.Epinician revels -- 6.Nemean 6 -- 7.Conclusions -- VIII.The Lyric Past -- 1.Lyric history -- 2.Generic enrichment -- A.Pythian 2 -- B.Pythian 1 -- C.Isthmian -- 3.Conclusions -- Epilogue -- Bibliography -- 1.Texts -- 2.Works cited.
- Summary
- Whereas the last several decades of scholarship on early Greek lyric have been primarily concerned with the immediate contexts of first performance, this volume turns its attention instead to the rhetoric and realities of poetic permanence, providing the first book-length study devoted to this topic. Taking Pindar and archaic Greek literary culture as its focus, it offers a new reading of Pindar's victory odes which explores not only how they were received by those who first experienced them, but also what they can mean to later audiences like us. Divided into two parts, the discussion first investigates Pindar's relationship to both of these audiences, demonstrating how Pindaric epinicia address the listeners present at their premiere performance and also a broader secondary audience across space and time, with Part One arguing that a full appreciation of these texts involves simultaneously assuming the perspectives of both of these audiences. Following on from this, Part Two describes how Pindar engages with a wide variety of other poetry, particularly earlier lyric, in order to situate his work both within an immanent poetic history and a contemporary poetic culture. In setting out his vision of the literary world, both past and present, the volume ably shows how this framework shaped the meaning of his work and illuminates the context within which he anticipated its permanence, offering new insights into the texts themselves and, more broadly, a re-thinking of the nature of early Greek poetic culture through a combination of historical and literary perspectives.
- Subject(s)
- Genre(s)
- ISBN
- 0198821271 (hardback)
9780198821274 (hardback) - Bibliography Note
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-325) and indexes.
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