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Greek Poetry 2000–700 B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. L. West
M. L. West
Affiliation:
University College, Oxford
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Extract

They used to believe that mankind began in 4004 B.C. and the Greeks in 776. We now know that these last five thousand years during which man has left written record of himself are but a minute fraction of the time he has spent developing his culture. We now understand that the evolution of human society, its laws and customs, its economics, its religious practices, its games, its languages, is a very slow process, to be measured in millennia. In the case of Greek religious usage it is now appreciated that it has its roots not in Mycenaean but in Palaeolithic times. As for Greek poetry, comparative studies have shown that it goes back by a continuous tradition to Indo-European poetry.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , December 1973 , pp. 179 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1973

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References

page 179 note 1 This insight, particularly associated with the name of Meuli, forms the basis of Burkert's, W. exciting new book Homo Necans (1972).Google Scholar

page 179 note 2 For details see Rüdiger Schmitt's comprehensive Dichtung and Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit (Wiesbaden, 1967),Google Scholar and the collection of articles edited by him in Indogermanische Dichtersprache (Darmstadt, 1968: Wege der Forschung, 165)Google Scholar, especially those of Wackernagel (from Philol. xcv [1943], 1–19Google Scholar = Schr. 186–204) and Durante (from Rendiconti dell' Accademia nazionale dei Lincei xiii [1958], 3–14Google Scholar; xv [1960], 231–49; xvii [1962], 25–43). On metre see Meillet, A., Les Origines indoeuropéennes des mètres grecs, 1923Google Scholar (the essentials may be found in his Apercu d'une histoire de la langue grecque, 7th edn., 1965, pp. 145–52)Google Scholar; Jakobson, R., ‘Studies in Comparative Slavic Metrics’, Oxford Slavonic Papers iii (1952)Google Scholar, 21–66 ≏ Selected Writings iv (1966), pp. 414–63Google Scholar; Watkins, C., ’Indo-European Metrics and Archaic Irish Verse’, Celtica vi (1963), 194–249Google Scholar; West, M. L., ‘Indo-European Metre’, Glotta li (1973).Google Scholar

page 179 note 3 See the first and second of Durante's articles.

page 180 note 1 By way of a control we may take the lists of noun-epithet formulas in Tamil poetry given by Kailasapathy, K., Tamil Heroic Poetry, 1968, pp. 148–70, where no such correspondences appear.Google Scholar

page 180 note 2 Articles by Kuhn, Specht, Schaeder, and Schröder in the Wege der Forschung volume. Specht goes so far as to reconstruct the noble verse idém, ĝonōses, úpo klute, ‘Hearken to this, men!’.

page 181 note 1 I am considering primarily Eumelus (in his prosodion for the Messenians, Melici 696), Alcman, Stesichorus, and Ibycus.

page 181 note 2 Stesichorus and Ibycus also have, white Alcman has Old Laconian; and Ibycus has in the third plural of the indicative, while Alcman has and apparently.

page 181 note 3 That it was sung is clear from such passages as Thgn. 241–3 and 939.

page 181 note 4 The various combinations are tabulated in my Iambi et Elegi, i. 1.

page 181 note 5 So apparently Alcm. 46 (ionics), 26, 77 ?, 81 ?, 107? (hexameters), and perhaps 20 (iambic dimeters), 19, 59a (iambic trimeters catalectic).

page 181 note 6 Alcm. 3 fr. 3 iii; 14(a), which resembles an Ionian epode.

page 182 note 1 Glyconic, Alcm. 59b. 3; pherecratean Alcm. 38; Ionics, Alcm. 46, 50; asymmetric cola also Alcm. I. 37 etc. (choriambic enhoplion A), Ibyc. 282. 4 etc. (the same) 8–9; 286. 1–3, 7/12; Stes. 223. 4, 244. 1, al.

page 182 note 2 Eumelus, Alcm., Stes., Ibyc.; particu. larly the hemiepes and tetrameter.

page 182 note 3 Alcm. 2(i). 1, 20, 38. 1?, 59b. 2, Ibyc 310. 1.

page 182 note 4 Alcm. 3 fr. 1–3 ii; 39; 89; Stes., see Zeitschr. f Pap. u. Epigr. iv (1969), 143 ff.; Ibyc. 285 ?, 315.

page 182 note 5 Snodgrass, A. M., The Dark Age of Greece, 1971, pp. 192–4.Google Scholar

page 182 note 6 Ibid., pp. 397 f.

page 182 note 7 Ibid., pp. 330 ff.

page 182 note 8 Ibid., pp. 336 ff.

page 183 note 1 Risch, E., Mus. Hely. xii (1955), 61–76Google Scholar; J. Chadwick, G. N.S. iii (1956), 38–50 (both reprinted in The Language and Background of Homer, ed. Kirk, G. S., 1964).Google Scholar

page 183 note 2 Palmer, L. R. in Fifty rears (and Twelve) of Classical Scholarship, 1968, p. 44, with literature.Google Scholar

page 184 note 1 The Arcado-Cypriot Mycenaean tendency to round back vowels in weak perhaps be regarded as an innovation which spread from the centre of the Mycenaean world, reaching parts which stood in the cultural mainstream but not the fringe areas occupied by the Dorians and Ionians,

page 185 note 1 See Zeitschr.f. Pap. u. Epigr. vii (1971), 264;Google Scholar criticized by R. Führer, Ibid. viii (1970), 252.

page 186 note 1 It was apparently in the Peloponnese that anapaests made their appearance, to judge from their occurrence in Spartan songs, Sicilian comedy (Aristoxenus, Epicharmus), and the Doricizing parts of Attic drama.

page 187 note 1 Cf. Alcm. 3. 65–7, 2 ditr.+1ek.; Anacr. 347, al., 3 ditr.+lek.

page 187 note 2 P. Thieme in the Wege der Forschung volume (above, p. 179 R. 2), pp. 59, 229–31; R. Schmitt, Ibid., pp. 342 f., and Dichtung and Dichtersprache, pp. 61–102.

page 188 note 1 Nilsson, , Homer and Mycenae, pp. 251–66.Google Scholar

page 189 note 1 Cf. Chantraine, , Grammaire homérique, i. 509–12Google Scholar; Risch, , Gnomon xxx (1958), 90–4.Google Scholar

page 189 note 2 [Hes.] frr. 211. 2–5, 212(b). 7, Pind. Nem. 4. 55 with schol.; cf. schol. Ap. Rhod. 1. 224–6a.

page 190 note 1 See Carpenter, R., Folk Tale, Fiction and Saga in the Homeric Epics, pp. 71–6.Google Scholar

page 190 note 2 If Alexandros-Paris is Alaksandus of Wilusa, he lived in the first half of the thirteenth century.

page 192 note 1 The first items in series are commonly dealt with at the greatest length; the poe hurries up as he proceeds. Cf. for example II. 16. 171–97; 18. 478–613; 23. 262–897; Hes. Op. 414–617.

page 192 note 2 Simpson, R. Hope and Lazenby, J. F., The Catalogue of the Ships in Homer's Iliad, 1970, p. 168.Google Scholar

page 192 note 3 Cf. Page, D. L., History and the Homeric Iliad, p. 153.Google Scholar