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Anacreon, an archaic Greek of 570-488 BCE, wrote in poetry in Ionic dialect and his influence on literature continued through western history. One form attributed to him was the Anacreontic, or anacreonteus, with seven syllables per line. The monodic lyrical poems, hymns, elegies, and dirges were intended for soloists rather than chorus, were sometimes metered, and were accompanied by a musical instrument. His themes told tales of wine, love, revelry, and the everyday. Anacreon is among the nine lyric poets the ancient Greeks said ought to be studied. Later poets up to the present adopted his style and themes and made him the subject of their poetry. 'Exercise', John Longenbach's poem published in "The New Yorker", describes the historical attention given to Anacreon. Poetry of the first century BCE to sixth century CE poetry imitating Anacreon comprises a set called the Anacreontea and is preserved in the tenth century "Anthologia Palatina". London gentlemen of the eighteenth century belonged to the Anacreontic Society whose anthem The Anacreontic Song became the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner". This modern poem guides the reader to others for whom Anacreon was the muse.
EXCERCISE. James Longenbach. November 23, 2009
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poet...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacreon...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacreon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_lyr...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacreon...
Anacreon and Sappho lived around 6th century BCE. Until Sappho wrote, poets told epics about the past, (Homer preceded her by a century); she introduced poems, accompanied by a lyre or another musical instrument, about daily experience and feelings, emotions attendant on love, sex, marriage, death, the concerns of women and men. 'A Hymn to Venus' addresses that goddess to alleviate the pain of love and to fulfill its desire. O Venus, beauty of the skies,To Plato, Sappho was the Tenth Muse, Zeus's tenth daughter, and therefore herself a goddess.
To whom a thousand temples rise,
Gaily false in gentle smiles,
Full of love-perplexing wiles;
O goddess, from my heart remove
The wasting cares and pains of love...
The Muses inspired imagination, creativity, and myth, and Sappho has moved poets throughout history. Sappho divined
I have no complaintPoemhunter lists examples by Robert Southey, Alexander Pope, Jon Corelis, Kelly Cherry, Uriah Hamilton, Christina Georgina Rossetti, Gaius Valerius Catullus, Rob Dyer, and Ric S. Bastasa, and Sara Teasdale. Josephine Balmer translated Sappho's Fragment 31, recommending readers to compare numerous translations for better understanding. Besides Sappho's poems, Sappho-inspired writing, and their translations, are the surviving fragments, combined into one whole poem. Such a reconstruction is 'Sappho to her Girlfriends'.
prosperity that
the golden Muses
gave me was no
delusion: dead, I
won't be forgotten
This is my song of maidens dear to me.
Eranna, a slight girl I counted thee,
When first I looked upon thy form and face,...
http://www.poemhunter.com/sappho/poems/
http://www.poemhunter.com/search/?q=s...
http://www.philae.nu/Sappho/sappho1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho
Anacreon and Sappho wrote monody, i.e. poems and songs for soloists, but Simonides, who is included among the 'nine lyric (or melic) poets' mentioned above, wrote for the chorus. In today's fiction, Simonides is the protagonist of "The Praise Singer" by Mary Renault, which is the book for April on THE WORLD'S LITERATURE. The novel's plot goes that Simonides of Keos (Ceos) apprenticed himself to a writer and singer called Kleobis. Although he learns the craft well, the court of Polycrates at Samos rejects him because of his lack of physical beauty; he instead wins the patronage of Pisistratos of Athens. The novel then turns to Hippias and Hipparchos, sons of Simonides, and to Lyra, his paramour-courtesan.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prai...
Wikipedia, by contrast, has a biography of Simonides to compare with the novel. Simonides was a philosopher of ethics, a poet of odes, elegies that commemorated battles, and dirges, and the inventor of mnemonics (memory assisted by loci, or associations and patterns). Frances Yates in "The Art of Memory" begins the book with Simonides. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simonide...
"Epitaph at Thermopylae" and "Fragment 01", poems of Simonides, are found at http://www.poemhunter.com/simonides/
Like Anacreon, Sappho, and Simonides, Pindar is among the nine whose poetry deserves study. Unlike Anacreon, he wrote in the Doric (western) dialect rather than the Ionic (eastern) dialect. Until Pindar reached seventy-two (he died at eighty), he wrote Victory Odes, or epinicia (singular, epinicion) to praise victorious athletes at the Panhellenic Games. The way to look at victory he believed was that "Men are nothing by themselves: success is god-given; but men attain an almost divine happiness at the moment of success. The poet himself has a skill that is god-given and cannot be taught; he is ‘the mouthpiece of the Muses’..."Pindar was an epinician, a poet who wrote in the genre of Victory Odes, which originated perhaps from Hymnoi, or hymns for Herakles, a god with the strength of a lion. An epinicion praised the victory, making the athlete the representative of the city and the aristocrats, but cautioned him to act with humility.
http://www.answers.com/topic/pindar (Classical Literature Companion)
The cities of the games in surviving odes are Athens, Delphi, Corinth, and Nemea; the odes he wrote for a city he collected into a book(s) to commemorate its victories in the games. The books of odes for each of these cities are the Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean. In addition to the epinicia, he wrote odes for processionals.
The victory odes, however, are stanzas in groupings of threes; while the odes for processionals disregard groupings. The structure of a victory ode is a triad of stanzas: the first is the strophe; the second duplicates the length and meter of the first and is the antistrophe; but the third differs in length and meter and is the epode. A entire ode can combine a number of triads with a 'choral dance' that moves across the stage and an instrument that accompanies the performance. An example of a victory ode in Greek and English is at http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/Pinda... and the player recites the ode in Greek. Besides odes for victories and processionals, Pindar wrote verses for a variety of occasions: grateful paeans, Dionysian dithyrhambs, laments, and songs for dancing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinicia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pindar
The Petronian Society Ancient Novel Page http://www.chss.montclair.edu/classic...
* Chaireas and Callirhoe
* Ethiopian Story by Heliodorus of Emesa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aethiopica commentary* The Ephesian Romance
http://www.elfinspell.com/HeliodorusM... full e-text
* Daphnis and Chloe by Longus (Longos)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphnis_... commentary* Leukippe and Kleitophon
https://www.msu.edu/~tyrrell/daphchlo... full e-text
* Apollonius King of Tyre
Play after Play: Aristophanes "Clouds"; Trans with Intro and Notes by Jeffrey Henderson.
Aristophanes "Four Plays: Lysistrata, The Frogs, A Parliament of Women, Plutus (Wealth)"; The new translations by Paul Roche.
Euripides "Ten Plays"; a new translation by Paul Roche.
Sophocles "The Complete Plays" includes the Oedipus Cycle; with a new afterword by Matthew S Santirocco.
The World's Literature in Europe
Books mentioned in this topic
The Odyssey (other topics)The Canterbury Tales (other topics)
An Ethiopian Romance (other topics)
Daphnis and Chloe (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Longus (other topics)Heliodorus of Emesa (other topics)
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/GreekLi...
Ancient Greek Literature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_...