Epiploke: Rhythmical Continuity and Poetic Structure in Greek Lyric
Ancient metricians saw Greek verse in essentially paradigmatic terms, as a mosaic of discrete feet or phrases, each with its own name and each conforming, within a permitted range of variation, to some fixed model. The syntagmatic alternative to this view offered here represents the first attempt since the early nineteenth century to make a decisive break with inherited metrical categories and assumptions. It argues that feet and phrases, to the extent that they exist at all in Greek lyric verse, tend to be present at the level of parole rather than langue—constituting one of a number of possible ways of articulating some larger rhythmical continuum. These larger rhythmical structures, comparable to the movements of a piece of Classical Western music but allowing for a more fluid bar structure, a greater variety of basic time signatures, and more frequent modulation, are the minimal independent utterances in lyric discourse.

Recognition of their existence and character allows a reduction of the bewildering multiplicity of rhythmical nomenclature to something much more simple and manageable, as well as a clearer view both of the architectonics of the Greek stanza and of the main lines of its development during the three centuries (700–400 B.C.) when rhythmical innovation and experimentation were at their height. The organization of the book is partially by genres, partially historical; its use in the study of individual passages is facilitated by a full index locorum.

1130018583
Epiploke: Rhythmical Continuity and Poetic Structure in Greek Lyric
Ancient metricians saw Greek verse in essentially paradigmatic terms, as a mosaic of discrete feet or phrases, each with its own name and each conforming, within a permitted range of variation, to some fixed model. The syntagmatic alternative to this view offered here represents the first attempt since the early nineteenth century to make a decisive break with inherited metrical categories and assumptions. It argues that feet and phrases, to the extent that they exist at all in Greek lyric verse, tend to be present at the level of parole rather than langue—constituting one of a number of possible ways of articulating some larger rhythmical continuum. These larger rhythmical structures, comparable to the movements of a piece of Classical Western music but allowing for a more fluid bar structure, a greater variety of basic time signatures, and more frequent modulation, are the minimal independent utterances in lyric discourse.

Recognition of their existence and character allows a reduction of the bewildering multiplicity of rhythmical nomenclature to something much more simple and manageable, as well as a clearer view both of the architectonics of the Greek stanza and of the main lines of its development during the three centuries (700–400 B.C.) when rhythmical innovation and experimentation were at their height. The organization of the book is partially by genres, partially historical; its use in the study of individual passages is facilitated by a full index locorum.

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Epiploke: Rhythmical Continuity and Poetic Structure in Greek Lyric

Epiploke: Rhythmical Continuity and Poetic Structure in Greek Lyric

by Thomas Cole
Epiploke: Rhythmical Continuity and Poetic Structure in Greek Lyric

Epiploke: Rhythmical Continuity and Poetic Structure in Greek Lyric

by Thomas Cole

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Overview

Ancient metricians saw Greek verse in essentially paradigmatic terms, as a mosaic of discrete feet or phrases, each with its own name and each conforming, within a permitted range of variation, to some fixed model. The syntagmatic alternative to this view offered here represents the first attempt since the early nineteenth century to make a decisive break with inherited metrical categories and assumptions. It argues that feet and phrases, to the extent that they exist at all in Greek lyric verse, tend to be present at the level of parole rather than langue—constituting one of a number of possible ways of articulating some larger rhythmical continuum. These larger rhythmical structures, comparable to the movements of a piece of Classical Western music but allowing for a more fluid bar structure, a greater variety of basic time signatures, and more frequent modulation, are the minimal independent utterances in lyric discourse.

Recognition of their existence and character allows a reduction of the bewildering multiplicity of rhythmical nomenclature to something much more simple and manageable, as well as a clearer view both of the architectonics of the Greek stanza and of the main lines of its development during the three centuries (700–400 B.C.) when rhythmical innovation and experimentation were at their height. The organization of the book is partially by genres, partially historical; its use in the study of individual passages is facilitated by a full index locorum.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674258228
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 06/24/1988
Series: Loeb Classical Monographs , #13
Pages: 288
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

Table of Contents

Abbreviations

Introductory Note: Basic Terms and Notation

PART ONE: Basic Forms of Epiploke and their Interrelation

1. Colon, Metron, Epiploke

2. Tetradic Rhythm (Iono-choriambic, Iambo-trochaic)

3. Prosodiac and Heptadic Aeolic

4. Octadic Aeolic

5. Antispastic, Dochmiac, Bacchio-cretic

6. Preliminary Conclusions

PART TWO: Epiploke in the History of Greek Verse

7. The Beginnings (Alcman, Stesichorus, Sappho and Alcaeus)

8. Late Archaic Lyric

9. Aeschylus

10. Sophocles and Early Euripides

11. The Late Fifth Century and After

APPENDICES

I: Terminal -˘˘-˘- in Dactylic

II: Responsion in Bacchylides 17

III: Aeolic in Simonides, Pindar and Bacchylides

IV: The "lambepos"

V: Disjunct Composition in Post-Aeschylean Choral Lyric

VI: "Major Ionic" -x-˘ and —˘˘ in Drama

VII: POxy 2687

VIII: Irrational Longs in Dramatic Lyric

TABLES I: Hellenistic Ionic (Minor)
II: Hellenistic Ionic (Major)
III: The Demarcations |x-˘-_˘
˘- and |-˘-_˘˘-
IV: lono-choriambic in Combination with Prosodiac V: Heptadic Aeolic VI: ˘˘-˘˘-˘-(x) and Longer Variants VII: "Dochmelegi," "Sesquiambi" and Related Forms VIII: Lesbian Aeolic IX: Derivation of Greek Verse Forms X: Possible Instances of Irrational Long in Greek Lyric

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