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

206 Pages·2001·0.7 MB·English

by  Mark W. Edwards

SOU ND, SENSE, AND RHYTHM
MARTIN CLASSICAL LECTURES
(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:2)
The Martin Classical Lectures are delivered annually at Oberlin
College through a foundation established by his many friends in honor of
Charles Beebe Martin, for forty-five years a teacher of classical
literature and classical art at Oberlin.
John Peradotto, Man in the Middle Voice: Name and
Narration in theOdyssey
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and
Practice in Hellenistic Ethnics
Josiah Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens:
Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule
Anne Carson, Economy of the Unlost (Reading Simonides
of Keos with Paul Celon)
Helene P. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy
Mark W. Edwards, Sound, Sense, and Rhythm:
Listening to Greek and Latin Poetry

Copyright © 2002 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock,
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All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Edwards, Mark W.
Sound, sense, and rhythm : listening to Greek and Latin poetry /Mark W. Edwards.
p. cm. —(Martin classical lectures. New series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-691-08666-4 (alk. paper)
1. Classical languages—Metrics and rhythmics. 2. Classical poetry—History
and criticism. 3. Oral communication—Greece. 4. Oral communication—
Rome. I. Title. II. Martin classical lectures (Unnumbered). New series.
PA185.E39 2001 880(cid:1)21—dc09 2001021989
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Janson Typeface
Printed on acid-free paper. (cid:1)∞
www.pup.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
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maqei`n qevlei~… divdaske. dov~, kta`sqai qevlwn
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CONTENTS
PREFACE ix
CHAPTER ONE
Homer I: Poetry and Speech 1
The Older Discoveries: Fränkel 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 II: 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 (Agamemnon104–257) 71
The Second Choral Song (Agamemnon367–488) 81
The Third Choral Song (Agamemnon681–781) 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
viii CONTENTS
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
PREFACE
W
henI received the invitation to give the Martin Classical Lectures, I
felt that I did not want to devote the whole series to what has been my main
research subject, the poetry of Homer. During my life as a university
teacher I have also developed a number of other interests, usually arising
from courses I have taught, and about two of them in particular I thought
I had something to say that might be useful to my peers in the profession:
the ways in which Aeschylus uses lyric meters in his choruses to convey a
meaning and a mood, and the ways Roman poets (Propertius in particular)
availed themselves of the special characteristics of the Latin language to
produce certain effects. These topics, it seemed to me, could be linked with
two others from Homeric studies that were much in my mind at the time:
the order and positioning of words in the verse, and the interconnection of
successive scenes (and hence the significance of the book divisions). All four
were centered upon the way one should try to imagine oneself listening to
ancient poetry, rather than reading it from the page; and all four had
strongly affected my teaching of these and other authors in undergraduate
classes, and might be of interest to others in such circumstances.
When I delivered the lectures in Oberlin in February 1998, I gave them
in the chronological order of authors discussed. In preparing them for pub-
lication I at first thought of abandoning this simple sequence in favor of one
that progressed from word order in Homer to word order in Latin poetry,
then on to word rhythm (or meter) in Aeschylus, and finally to larger-scale
issues of Homer’s ways of keeping his hearers’ attention while passing from
one scene to another. However, readers of this version were not impressed
by this arrangement of the material, and complained that the transitions be-
tween the chapters were weak—they were obviously thinking the book
should be a unified whole, and wanted a better synthesis of the parts. I have
therefore returned to the sequence of the lectures, which (besides having
the advantage of familiarity) produces another, perhaps clearer, progression
of topics. Now our examination moves from Homer’s art in arranging the
sequence of his words to his skill in linking the succession of his scenes, and
then on to how Aeschylus drives home his meaning by his use of meter (i.e.,
music and dance) and how Roman poets use the quite different features of
the Latin language for their own poetic purposes. Since most Classics
teachers are involved with all the authors I discuss, I hope they will read
through the whole volume; but the chapters can be read independently if
desired.