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, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY 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 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 maqei`n qevlei~… divdaske. dov~, kta`sqai qevlwn This page intentionally left blank 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.