Topic 1 - Poetry and Performance

Question 1

how were the homeric epics told? what facilitated this?

Answer 1

Homeric epics originate within ‘oral composition’. These epics are filled with Formulas, repeated phrases used in oral composition as a stock of ‘pre-formed’ units that fit the rather demanding meter. The Name and epithet being most common.

Question 2

what else is repeated?

Answer 2

speeches are also commonly repeated. almost half of the Iliad is direct speech, more than half of the Odyssey, around 55% of both poems together.

Question 3

what is the distinction between author and narrator?

Answer 3

there is a distinction between author and narrator; the author is a historical person where a narrator is a feature of the text - the voice that tells the story. however, the narrator need not be a character e.g. Omniscience.

Question 4

what did Parry and Lord conclude?

Answer 4

Parry and Lord concluded that Homeric epic’s contents were not rigid, it could be adapted from performance to performance even if its basic shape stays the same.

Question 5

what else did they conclude?

Answer 5

they also concluded that epithets were used during improvised performance to fill out Homeric hexameter.

Question 6

what did Finley conclude?

Answer 6

Finely concluded that the world portrayed in the Homeric epics did not provide a reflection of the bronze age. Although the stories were fictional, they provided historical information on institutions and practices e.g. the economy, slavery. guest-friendship, marriage practices, sacrifice etc.

Question 7

what was an old 19th century approach to the Homeric poems?

Answer 7

an old 19th century approach to the Homeric poems was to see them as the collective residue of a great many poets. The contributions of these individuals have been stitched together into larger composite wholes, eventually becoming the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Question 8

what did scholars try to do?

Answer 8

Scholars tried to split the poems up into these putative smaller works and date the constituent parts. From a historians perspective, there was no such thing as a ‘Homeric society’, only a collection of parts dating to many different periods.

Question 9

what did Anthony Snodgrass say?

Answer 9

this idea was coined by the archaeologist Anthony Snodgrass who said the poems were a patchwork quilt combining odds and ends from different times over a span of several centuries.

Question 10

what does current consensus state?

Answer 10

Current consensus states that they portray the social institutions and practices of the audience, not of the 10th-9th century as Finley supposed. it also uses ‘epic-distancing’ -the poems use of archaising features, e.g. the use of bronze tools to create an atmosphere of antiquity. Lastly, it is glamorised, men are bigger, stronger, richer and altogether flashier than in 8th-7th century reality, creating an atmosphere of a lost heroic age.

Question 11

How is lyric Poetry performed?

Answer 11

Lyric poetry is performed as song by either a chorus or a soloist.

Question 12

what are some problems with early lyric?

Answer 12

problems with early Greek lyric is that most of it is very fragmented in quotation and papyrus

Question 13

who was Sappho?

Answer 13

Sappho was of Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos and was most active or popular in c.600 BCE. Her work was collected by Hellenistic scholars into 9 books which are mostly fragmented however, Sappho 1 and the Tithonus seems to be complete.

Question 14

what was the symposion?

Answer 14

the symposion was a popular space for performance. It was a social distinction or ritual filled with ‘male bonding’ and ‘reflexive’ discourse. it was also an erotic space.

Question 15

what was a symposion a space for?

Answer 15

the symposion was a space for acting out. Solon’s salamis was most likely composed for sympotic performance.

Question 16

what was a Skolion?

Answer 16

A skolion was also performed at a symposion which was just a traditional drinking song. there were many different songs with the same metrical form that present religious, social and political views.

Question 17

why did most women join the chorus?

Answer 17

most women joined the chorus as a preliminary to marriage.

Question 18

what is oral tradition?

Answer 18

Oral tradition is a chain extending through time diachronically and unless special pains are made to make it word perfect, the story will change and degrade over rime.

Question 19

what does social forgetting do?

Answer 19

social forgetting spring-cleans a societies fund of oral traditions every generation and disgards what is not relevant to that generation.

Question 20

when was writing introduced? what happened?

Answer 20

writing was introduces to Greece c.800 BCE, entering into a previously oral culture, oral tradition and written records would then co-exist for the remainder of antiquity

Question 21

in what instance were oral stories preserved?

Answer 21

oral stories were preserved due to certain social contexts that promoted the retelling of stories. everything else was forgotten thus we have a selective fund of stories about the archaic era

Question 22

what did Herodotus do?

Answer 22

Herodotus freezes these traditions in writing like flies in amber. he didn’t necessarily believe them all, and in this respect is not unlike a modern anthropologist.

Question 23

what were temples good for

Answer 23

temples were particularly good repositories for the kinds of objects that prompted the retelling of stories

Question 24

how did Herodotus interpret these stories

Answer 24

Herodotus skillfully wove a complex tapestry of these stories about the archaic era into a much broader narrative are to do with the origins of the conflict between the Greeks and barbarians.

Question 25

what is performed at Dionysia?

Answer 25

dramatic performances are not the only performances at Dionysia but also choral performances - a chorus of 50 boys and 50 men from each of the 10 tribes

Question 26

what competition is held?

Answer 26

there is also a tragic competition between 3 poets to write 4 plays - this is not a tetraligy, it’s 3 consecutive plays with another on the end.

Question 27

what other activities are there?

Answer 27

there are other activities inbetween and before these plays such as the procession of orphans which comprised of boys and young men whos fathers died defending Athens.

Question 28

were women involved in the theater?

Answer 28

all performers were men regardless of gender of the character although Plato heavily implied that women did attend the theater

Question 29

are there any Greeks named in the play ‘Persians’?

Answer 29

at not point in the entirety of the play ‘Persians’ is any Greek names, only referred to as ‘Greek man’ suggesting the generic poetic tragedy - about other people, perhaps no Greeks were named to make it less personal - to contest there are lots of Persian named to highlight the ‘foreignness’

Question 30

why is there lot’s of luxury?

Answer 30

there is also a lot of luxury - gold and silver to highlight the Greek conceptualisation of the Persians as always being draped in luxury - emblematic of greed?

Question 31

how may the Greeks have felt about the ending of the play?

Answer 31

interesting to think about how the Greeks would have responded to the ending of the play as the Persians mourn their losses, would they feel pity for their enemy?