Pindar

by Cecil Maurice Bowra

Though Pindar is a notoriously difficult author who calls for considerable elucidation if he is to be understood and enjoyed, books on him are very rare in English. Sir Maurice Bowra now provides an extensive and fully documented introduction which surveys his work from several different angles. Sir Maurice begins by considering his view of poetry, his religious convictions, and his relation to contemporary political events, then turns to ask what he saw in athletic success, reviews his art in its manners and mannerisms, its imagery and its use of myths, and ends by examining the principles on which he constructs an ode and making an assessment of his poetical personality. Though the main plan of the book is comprehensive, it pays full attention to details and is well abreast with modem Pindaric scholarship. Though Greek is freely quoted, translations are provided, and the book should be of interest also to lovers of poetry who are not strictly classical scholars.

Genres: Poetry

446 pages, Hardcover

First published December 7, 1964

About the author

Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra was an English classical scholar and academic, known for his wit. He was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1970, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1951 to 1954.

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bowra's Pindar, depending on who one consults, either remains, after 50 years, the definitive introduction to the quintessential Greek lyric poet, or a dated work best relegated to the vast dustbin of antiquated literary criticism. Although it is undoubtedly a bit of time travel, and truly nobody publishes 400-page monographs on a single author anymore, I find myself enthusiastically in the former camp. Such old-school classical scholarship, rooted in philology, a deep linguistic mastery and pan-Hellenic literacy, has something to offer that cannot be replaced by any of the gymnastics of more recent political or theory-bound criticism.

At its root, Bowra's approach is unabashedly biographical. Each chapter is a detailed, if sometimes meandering, survey of Pindar's entire oeuvre in relation to a series of key elements, e.g. treatment of myth, the athletic ideal, etc. Bowra brings unity to what might otherwise be an unwieldy compendium of micro-readings by tying everything in to an interpretation of Pindar's vision. The work thus culminates logically in an overview of Pindar's "poetical personality"-- what can be gleaned of his outlook as it matured over an 80-year life encompassing the entire Periclean era.

Pindar emerges as a consummate poet whose outlook arose from the heroic age of Homer and Hesiod, played out in an age of pan-Hellenic optimism, enabled by victory over Persia and epitomized by the various Games, and just glimpsing the strife to come across the Peloponnese.

[Mac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earlier this year, I really learned a lot from C.M. Bowra's companion to Greek Lyric Poetry. In Pindar, Bowra performs the same service for the great fifth-century poet. Bowra wrote the book near the end of his career, and it is clear that he has lived with and thought about this difficult poetry for a long time. Each chapter looks at a particular theme or method in Pindar's work and then draws illustrations from throughout his extant poems. Occasionally Bowra also cites contemporary poets like the Athenian tragedians or Theognis as complements or contrasts to his points about Pindar.

By the end of Pindar I had a much better understanding of how the poet's mind works, and of how his poetry works. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is attempting to tackle this most difficult of Greek authors.