Sound, Sense, and Rhythm: Listening to Greek and Latin Poetry

by Mark W. Edwards

Overview

This book concerns the way we read--or rather, imagine we are listening to--ancient Greek and Latin poetry. Through clear and penetrating analysis Mark Edwards shows how an understanding of the effects of word order and meter is vital for appreciating the meaning of classical poetry, composed for listening audiences.


The first of four chapters examines Homer's emphasis of certain words by their positioning; a passage from the Iliad is analyzed, and a poem of Tennyson illustrates English parallels. The second considers Homer's techniques of disguising the break in the narrative when changing a scene's location or characters, to maintain his audience's attention. In the third we learn, partly through an English translation matching the rhythm, how Aeschylus chose and adapted meters to arouse listeners' emotions. The final chapter examines how Latin poets, particularly Propertius, infused their language with ambiguities and multiple meanings. An appendix examines the use of classical meters by twentieth-century American and English poets.


Based on the author's Martin Classical Lectures at Oberlin College in 1998, this book will enrich the appreciation of classicists and their students for the immense possibilities of the languages they read, translate, and teach. Since the Greek and Latin quotations are translated into English, it will also be welcomed by non-classicists as an aid to understanding the enormous influence of ancient Greek and Latin poetry on modern Western literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781400824830
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	01/10/2009
Series:	Martin Classical Lectures , #16
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Mark W. Edwards is Emeritus Professor of Classics at Stanford University. He is the author of Homer: Poet of the Iliad and Volume 5 of The Iliad: A Commentary.

Table of Contents

Preface ix
CHAPTER ONE: Homer I: Poetry and Speech 1
The Older Discoveries: Frankel and Parry 2
The New Theories. Functional Grammar and the Grammar of Speech 9
Homeric Style in Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur 14
Homeric Style in the Duels of Achilles 18
CHAPTER TWO: Homer 11: Scenes and Summaries 38
The Book Divisions 39
The Paragraph Divisions 47
Joining Episode to Episode 53
Continuity and Oral Poetics 58
CHAPTER THREE: Music and Meaning in Three Songs of Aeschylus 62
The First Choral Song (Agamemnon 104-257) 71
The Second Choral Song (Agamemnon 367-488) 81
The Third Choral Song (Agamemnon 681-781) 88
The Rest of the Agamemnon, and of the Trilogy 95
CHAPTER FOUR: Poetry in the Latin Language 99
Latin Word Order 99
Ambiguity in Latin Verse 105
Propertius 1.19 109
AFTERWORD 125
APPENDIX A: Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur 129
APPENDIX B: "" Continuity in Mrs. Dalloway 149
APPENDIX C: The Performance of Homeric Episodes 151
APPENDIX D: Classical Meters in Modern English Verse 166
REFERENCES 179
INDEX 189

What People are Saying About This

Steven Fineberg

Mark Edwards provides an extraordinarily sensitive and intelligent reading of the poems on which he focuses. Every classroom instructor teaching Greek or Roman poetic texts deserves the opportunity to read his book, both for its wonderful particulars and for its important general principles.
— Steven Fineberg, Knox College

Thomas Van Nortwick

Sound, Sense, and Rhythm is superb. Among its many virtues are a remarkable mastery of technical aspects of ancient verse, providing a treasurehouse of information for classicists and other professionals; the excellent use of modern and/or contemporary literature to help explain ancient practice, and the clear and graceful writing.
— Thomas Van Nortwick, Oberlin College

From the Publisher

"Sound, Sense, and Rhythm is superb. Among its many virtues are a remarkable mastery of technical aspects of ancient verse, providing a treasurehouse of information for classicists and other professionals; the excellent use of modern and/or contemporary literature to help explain ancient practice, and the clear and graceful writing."—Thomas Van Nortwick, Oberlin College

"Mark Edwards provides an extraordinarily sensitive and intelligent reading of the poems on which he focuses. Every classroom instructor teaching Greek or Roman poetic texts deserves the opportunity to read his book, both for its wonderful particulars and for its important general principles."—Steven Fineberg, Knox College

Editorial Reviews

"If by this book [Edwards] succeeds in heightening sensitivity to the features which he seeks to recuperate, he will indeed have done good service to his peers and successors . . . and have given renewed hope for the continued vitality of ancient Greek and Latin literature."—-Michael W. Haslam, Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews

"This lively and often fascinating exposition of the sound of ancient poetry and its relation to sense and meaning, especially as perceived by the listening audience, is relevant to anyone who tries to understand ancient literature in context. . . . [T]his book is enlightening for both scholars and general readers of the classics, indeed for those interested in the relation between sound and sense in any literature and for lovers of the poetry of any culture."—-Jonathan J. Price, Religious Studies Review

From the Publisher

This lively and often fascinating exposition of the sound of ancient poetry and its relation to sense and meaning, especially as perceived by the listening audience, is relevant to anyone who tries to understand ancient literature in context. . . . [T]his book is enlightening for both scholars and general readers of the classics, indeed for those interested in the relation between sound and sense in any literature and for lovers of the poetry of any culture.

Religious Studies Review - Jonathan J. Price

If by this book [Edwards] succeeds in heightening sensitivity to the features which he seeks to recuperate, he will indeed have done good service to his peers and successors . . . and have given renewed hope for the continued vitality of ancient Greek and Latin literature.

Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews - Michael W. Haslam

This lively and often fascinating exposition of the sound of ancient poetry and its relation to sense and meaning, especially as perceived by the listening audience, is relevant to anyone who tries to understand ancient literature in context. . . . [T]his book is enlightening for both scholars and general readers of the classics, indeed for those interested in the relation between sound and sense in any literature and for lovers of the poetry of any culture.
— Jonathan J. Price

Religious Studies Review

If by this book [Edwards] succeeds in heightening sensitivity to the features which he seeks to recuperate, he will indeed have done good service to his peers and successors . . . and have given renewed hope for the continued vitality of ancient Greek and Latin literature.
— Michael W. Haslam

Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews

If by this book [Edwards] succeeds in heightening sensitivity to the features which he seeks to recuperate, he will indeed have done good service to his peers and successors . . . and have given renewed hope for the continued vitality of ancient Greek and Latin literature.
— Michael W. Haslam

Bryn Mawr Classical Review