Sunoikisis Greek 292/392: Greek Lyric PoetrySyllabus, Fall 2013Faculty Consultant: Prof. Gregory Nagy (Harvard University)Course Director: Prof. Ryan C. Fowler (CHS)This work by the Sunoikisis consortium is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/. Syllabus Authors:

D. Ben DeSmidt  (Carthage College) Ryan C. Fowler  (CHS Sunoikisis) Heather Waddell Gruber (Concordia College) Joseph N. Jansen (Rhodes College)  Gregory Nagy (Harvard University)  Polyvia Parara (University of Maryland) Arum Park (Brigham Young University) Danilo Piana (Ph.D. candidate, Johns Hopkins University) Joseph Romero (University of Mary Washington) David Sick  (Rhodes College) Heather Vincent (Eckerd College) David Yates (Millsaps College)

Included in this syllabus: a course overview, a bibliography, a schedule of assignments, and study questions.

COURSE OVERVIEWCourse Faculty:

D. Ben DeSmidt is an Associate Professor of Great Ideas and Classics at Carthage College.Ryan C. Fowler is the CHS Sunoikisis Fellow in Curricular Development. Heather Waddell Gruber is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Joseph N. Jansen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Studies at Rhodes College, where he also teaches courses for the History Department and the Search for Values Program. Gregory Nagy is the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University and the Director of Harvard University's Center for Hellenic Studies. 

Polyvia Parara is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland.Arum Park is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Brigham Young University.Danilo Piana is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Classics at the Johns Hopkins University.Joseph Romero is an Associate Professor at the University of Mary Washington. David Sick is an Associate Professor at Rhodes College.Heather Vincent is an Associate Professor of Classics at Eckerd College. David Yates is an Assistant Professor at Millsaps College. NB: All common sessions will occur on Wednesday evenings at 7:00 Eastern Time. Weeks are listed starting on Thursday of the week before each common session. Students should complete all listed readings in the week before the lecture and respond to posted study questions by noon the Sunday before the common session, so that faculty and other students will have the opportunity to review responses. Course DescriptionThis course, making extensive use of resources available via the internet, focuses on the evolution of major types of Greek poetry, including elegy (Archilochus, Tyrtaeus, Solon, Xenophanes, Simonides, Theognis), monodic lyric (Sappho, Alcaeus, Anacreon, and Simonides), and choral lyric (Pindar and Bacchylides). This course is specifically designed for advanced students and will include a rigorous study of cultural and historical contexts during the archaic period in Greece. Students will also become familiar with current interpretative approaches to the material. In spite of the new directions and diverse contexts of the poetry, authors at this time created and sustained a dialogue with the epic tradition found in Homer and Hesiod, so some familiarity with epic will help inform students' work with elegaic and lyric poems. Students will participate in a weekly webcast lecture, an on-line discussion moderated by faculty members from participating institutions, and weekly tutorials with faculty members at their home institutions. Course Objectives

Advanced students of Greek will continue developing their understanding of ancient Greek by studying the poetry that emerged during the archaic period and represented a clear and significant departure from the epic tradition. This course will track the development of three major forms of poetry: elegy, monodic lyric, and choral lyric poetry. The course will also explore the social and political background of Greece in the archaic period because this poetry contains some of the earliest personal testimonia from ancient Greece. Course ComponentsPreparation: As noted below, readings are organized by common session, and students should read all assigned primary texts before the common session (ideally before answering the corresponding writing prompt). Students who choose to take this course at the 292 rather than 392 level will be responsible for less reading in Greek but will be expected to complete all of the reading in English. Common Sessions: Wednesday, 7-8:15 PM EST. Students at all participating institutions will meet together online for a common session via multipoint interactive video-conferencing and a chat room. These interactive sessions have a different faculty leader each week and typically combine mini-lectures with discussion, questions, and exercises.

Study Questions: Responses to the study questions are due Sunday by noon; between then and the common session, please provide at least one substantial comment to two other students' posts. The study questions afford students the opportunity to expand on and synthesize issues that arise in the reading and common session, as well as engage with secondary literature. Students may be asked to complete additional reading in English for the study questions. Due Dates and Times for Discussion Questions:Initial answers to study prompts are due noon EST on Sundays, and responses to other students' answers are due before that week’s Common Session. Tutorials: Each student will meet for at least one hour every week with a mentor at her or his home institution. The times and

locations of these meetings will be determined on each campus. Students are responsible for contacting their faculty mentors and finalizing the details of their weekly meetings. These sessions will focus more closely on issues of language, translation and interpretation of assigned readings. Home campus mentors will be the final authority for all grades. Examinations: Translation exams and quizzes will be handled by home institutions.  There will be a Google Hangout office hour Fridays from 1-2pm EST. The course weeks will be September 11th through December 4th. There is a midterm break between Oct. 9th-15th. For students in Greek 292, grades will be based on the following components:Class preparation and work in tutorial: 40%Participation in the study questions: 30%Midterm examination: 15%Final examination: 15% For students in Greek 392, grades will be based on the following components:Class preparation and work in tutorial: 30%Participation in the study questions: 30%Midterm examination: 20%Final examination: 20% COURSE BIBLIOGRAPHYSuggested Texts: Most texts and commentaries will be made available in the resources section of the Sakai site for the class, but individual faculty may require students to purchase one or more texts. Hard copy text: Campbell, David, ed. 1982. Greek Lyric Poetry. Duckworth Publishing. Supplementary English translations:

Lattimore, Richmond, trans. 1960. Greek Lyrics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Verity, Anthony, trans. 2008. The Complete Odes of Pindar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Fagles, Robert. 1998. Bacchylides: Complete Poems. New Haven: Yale University Press.Carson, Anne, trans. 2003. If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho. New York: Vintage. Secondary readings:

Battezzato, Luigi. 2005. "Lyric," in A Companion to Greek Tragedy, pp. 149-166.

Falkner, Thomas. 1995. "The Politics and Poetics of Time: Solon's Ten Ages" in The Poetics of Old Age in Greek Epic, Lyric, and Tragedy, pp. 153-168.

Felson, Nancy. 1999. "Vicarious Fictive Deixis in Pindar's Pythian Four." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 99: 1-31.

Ferrari, Gloria. 2008. “Introduction,” in Alcman and the Cosmos of Sparta.

Kurke, Leslie. 2007. “Greek Archaic Poetry," in Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece, pp. 141-58.

Ladianou, Katerina. 2005. “The Poetics of Choreia: Imitation and Dance in the Anacreontea.” Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica 80: 47-60.

Nagy, Gregory. 2007. "Did Sappho and Alcaeus ever meet? Symmetries of myth and ritual in performing the songs of ancient Lesbos," pp. 211-269.

Nagy, Gregory. 2007. “Lyric and Greek Myth,” in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, ed. R.D. Woodward, Cambridge University Press.

Parry, Hugh. 2006. The Lyric Poems of Greek Tragedy, pp. 47-70.

Rosenmeyer, Patricia. “Introduction: the Anacreontic question and Origins: the role of Anacreon as model,” in The Poetics of Imitation: Anacreon and the Anacreontic Tradition, pp. 1-49.

Winkler, John J. 1990. “Double Consciousness in Sappho’s Lyrics,” in The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece, pp. 162-87.

SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND COMMON

SESSIONS(Texts and links for each session's are available in the Resources folder.)

Introductory Common Session (September 11)

Wednesday“Introduction to the course, technology, and logistics” (Ryan Fowler, CHS) First Common Session (September 18)  Greek reading:300-level: Callinus 1 (and commentary); Tyrtaeus 9 (and commentary); Theognis 39-68 (and commentary); Archilochus 1, 2, 6, 22 (and commentary) (709)

200-level: Tyrtaeus 9 (and commentary); Theognis 39-68 (and commentary); Archilochus 1, 2, 6, 22 (and commentary) (508 words)Common Session assignment:

Please read: 300-level (in English): Tyrtaeus 2; Xenophanes 2; Archilochus (all) (in Lattimore GL selections)200-level (in English): Tyrtaeus 2; Xenophanes 2; Archilochus (all); Callinus 1;  Theognis 53-68 (in Lattimore GL selections)Both levels Read:Leslie Kurke, “Greek Archaic Poetry," in Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece, pp. 141-58Kurke’s article exemplifies two major trends in the study of Greek lyric poetry for the last quarter century. The first is the anti-Romantic reading of the lyrical corpus, which deemphasizes the individual poet’s unique personality and subjectivity in favor of viewing the author as simply giving voice to the values, concerns, anxieties, etc. of the social group to which he/she author belonged. This school rarely speaks of poets as flesh and blood personalities with real historical biographies, but rather of competing poetic traditions that exemplify the ideological outlooks of the groups the poets represent, which often

transcended the time and place of their supposed floruit. So, for example, many scholars no longer talk about Theognis the disgruntled Megarian aristocrat who lived in the early 6th century as they do about “Theognidean poetry” or the “Theognis poetic tradition,” a style of elegiac poetry fit for delivery at a symposium anywhere and at anytime in the Greek world where elites felt out of sync with their contemporaries on a whole host of issues from love and sex to the nouveaux riche. The second major trend in scholarship on Greek lyric has been a move towards “cultural poetics” or New Historicism, if you prefer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Historicism), which holds the view that everything is political: “that language and knowledge, like everything else in culture, are not separate, disinterested spheres exempt from the play of differential power relations, but are discourses generated and structured by those relations” (Dougherty and Kurke, Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece, p. 5). As Kurke’s own analysis of a variety of lyric poems evidence, texts are sites for the ongoing negotiation of power relations within society, with the struggle between elite and “middling” traditions taking center stage during the archaic age.  For Kurke then, these poems “preserve a precious record of intense ideological contestation” (p.145). In 350-450 words, answer one of the following questions based on Kurke’s article1) Taking Tyrtaeus’ poetry (9 and 2 in Lattimore GL) as a case study, write an anti-biographical based analysis of his poetry, underscoring the values and ideologies it promotes, especially those that speak against a local (epichoric), Spartan context and more towards a Panhellenic one (but please note that you do not have to take the position that a real Tyrtaeus ever existed). In short, what is Tyrtaean poetry all about? Although you are to eschew a biographical approach, you should consult David Campbell’s (GLP) synopsis of his life on pp. 168-171. Such biographical details, especially those from the classical age, as Kurke shows us in her examination of Archilochus, can be useful for understanding the nature lyrical poetic traditions. One hint: why would Plato think that Tyrtaeus was an Athenian by birth? 2) Noting carefully what Kurke has to say about Archilochus and his ideological stance vis-à-vis the culture of habrosyneof

monody, give your own New Historicist interpretation of his poem about his shield (6 GLP). In Archaic Greece, why would a shield be a matter of ideological contestation? Do any of his other poems speak shed light on this question?

Wednesday “Historical overview of the Archaic Period” (Joe Jansen, Rhodes College)Second Common Session (September 25) 

Greek reading:300-level: Tyrtaeus 10; Solon 3, 24; Alcaeus (life) 6, (frr.) 70, 348; Theognis: 19-38, 39-52 (and commentary [19-26, 39-52]) (905 words)

200-level: Solon 3; Alcaeus (life) 6, (frr.) 70, 348; Theognis: 19-38 (and commentary [19-26]) (485 words) Common Session assignment:In his book " To Hellenio Kosmosystema" Professor George Contogiorgis analyses the rise of the Greek world as a world of freedom surrounded by a despotic cosmosystem (Persia, Egypt). Evolving through the centuries, the world of Greek poleis reach its culminating point during the Classical Period with the Athenian Constitution, a democracy of holistic freedom (individual, social and political) for its citizenry (δῆμος).Looking at contemporary political evolutions, civic values, and virtues as reflected in the lyric poets, to what extent do you recognize the rise of the values of democracy in the archaic period? Take 250-300 words to answer, referring specifically to your Greek texts and using the English poems you have read as support.To elaborate on this question you may want to consider the following topics and questions:TytraeusBased on fragment 10, elaborate the civic virtues and the ideal of the collective citizenry.Solon Explore to what extent poem 4 (Campbell's Solon 3), “The Elegy of the Polis,” can be read as an analysis of Athens’ political problems (are these problems local or universal)?Elaborate the role of the poet/lawgiver as described in poem 36.Based on these two elegies, how does Solon’s "σοφίη" circumscribe the relation between the city and the citizen?

TheognisWhat are the Greek political terms for: nobles, base, city, people, leaders, tyrants, civil strife. What does this terminology imply?In fragment 19-38, how does the poet describe his role in his polis and his attitude towards his fellow citizens?Which is the political meaning/content of the term “εὐθυντήρ” in fragment 39-52? To whom does the phrase “ἡμετέρη ὕβρις” refer, and what is its connotation?AlcaeusBased on fragments 70, 72, 129, 130 B, comment on Dionysius of Halicarnassus' thought about the poet: "Often if you remove the meter you would find the political rhetoric." (On Imitation, in Fragment 20 in Alcaeus’ Life)Wednesday“Politics, the State, Civic Virtue and Lyric” (Polyvia Parara, University of Maryland) [pdf of the lecture] Third Common Session (October 2)  Greek Reading:300-level: ThrenoiPindar, frr. 128c, 129, 130, 131a, 131b, 134, 136aAeschylus, Persians 705-8 (Darius speaking to Atossa), 821-6 (Darius speaking to Atossa and Chorus of Persian Elders), 840-2 (Darius speaking to the Chorus)Sophocles, Electra 287-292 (Electra speaking about Clytemnestra to Chorus of Mycenaean Women)Euripides, Alcestis 416-19 (Chorus of Citizens of Pherae speaking to Admetus), 864-71 (Admetus lamenting before the Chorus), 903-10 (Chorus speaking to Admetus) HymenaioiSappho, frr. 2, 27, 30, 103b, 107, 108, 109, 110a, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116 (and commentary [2, 110a, 111, 115])Euripides, Hippolytus 73-81 (Hippolytus speaking before the altar of Artemis)Aeschylus, Suppliants 1018-33 (Chorus of Danaids) 

200-Level:ThrenoiPindar, frr. 128c, 129, 130, 131a, 131b, 134, 136aHymenaioiSappho, frr. 2, 27, 30, 103b, 107, 108, 109, 110a, 111, 112, 113,

114, 115, 116 (and commentary [2, 110a, 111, 115])

Common Session assignment:Please read:In the Blackwell Companion to Greek Tragedy: Lyric (Luigi Battezzato [Università del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy])Please take 300-400 words and discuss the following: Fifth-century Athenian tragedy is a genre that encompasses many of the forms and content of Archaic lyric. I've selected two particular lyric genres--hymenaioi (wedding songs) and threnoi (ritual laments)--as our focus for this week. What themes can you identify as common to both the lyric and tragic selections assigned? How do the tragic contexts adopt/adapt their lyric models?Wednesday“Lyric and Tragedy” (Arum Park, BYU) Fourth Common Session (October 9)  Greek reading: 300-level: Sappho 1, 16, 22, 31, 44, 94, 96, 105A, 111 (review), 168B (= Adesp. 976 and commentary) (and commentary [1, 16, 31, 44, 96, 105a, 111]); Alcman 1 (and commentary)

200-level: Sappho 1, 16, 22, 31, 94, 96, 105A, 111 (review), 168B (= Adesp. 976 [and commentary]) (and commentary [1, 16, 31, 44, 96, 105a, 111]) Common Session assignment:

Read in Translation: Iliad V.114-459 Secondary Readings:Winkler, John J. “Double Consciousness in Sappho’s Lyrics,” in The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece (1990): 162-87. 300-level: Images from Ferrari to accompany Alcman (Ferrari, Gloria. “Introduction,” in Alcman and the Cosmos of Sparta.)

Figures 1-4 between pages 2-3 (We will discuss these images in the concurrent session) "Double consciousness” is a term coined by W. E. B DuBois to describe the “sense of always looking at one-self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (The Souls of Black Folk, 1903). He argued that the awareness of being both American and African American led to a sort of internalized two-ness. African Americans had to learn how to operate both within a White America and within a separate Black America. DuBois’ concept of double consciousness can be used to understand the way any socially subordinate group defines itself with regards to the socially dominant group. John J. Winkler applies DuBois’ theory to men and women in 7th century BCE Lesbos. According to Winkler, “There are two sides to double consciousness: Sappho both re-enacts scenes from public culture infused with her private perspective as the enclosed woman, and she speaks publicly of the most private, woman-centered experiences from which men are strictly excluded” (181). What does he mean by this?  How can poems 1, 16, and 31 be understood in the context of Homer (or why should they be)? How does Sappho use language in such a way that even the most private desires can be expressed publicly? Given the nature of Sappho's sexual imagery, how do you interpret poems 94, 105A and 111?  In 300-400 words, feel free to discuss any or all of these questions. Wednesday“The Apple of Desire: Sex, Gender, and Lyric” (Heather Gruber, Concordia College) Midterm Break Oct. 10-16 Fifth Common Session (October 23)  Greek Reading:300-level: Mimnermus 1-2, 10 (and commentary); Anacreon 358 (and commentary), 395 (and commentary); Sappho 104a (and commentary), 168B (= Adesp. 976 and commentary) (review); Ibycus 287 (and commentary); Solon 19 (and

commentary); Semonides 1 (and commentary)

200-level: Mimnermus 1-2, 10 (and commentary); Anacreon 395 (and commentary); Sappho 104a (and commentary), 168B (= Adesp. 976 and commentary); Ibycus 287 (and commentary)

Common Session assignment:Reading:Falkner, Thomas. 1995. "The Politics and Poetics of Time: Solon's Ten Ages" in The Poetics of Old Age in Greek Epic, Lyric, and Tragedy. Norman, OK. pp. 153-168.In 300-400 words, please respond to the following questions:1) Consider the various metaphors for youth and old age you encountered in this week’s assignments, and choose a particular poem that employs traditional metaphors and images. How do these images function in the poem?  (Is the function structural? Allusive? Philosophical? Purely aesthetic?)  Explain.2) Thomas Falkner finds considerable merit in the innovative arithmetic structure of Solon’s so-called “Ten Ages” poem, and he connects the quantitative emphasis of the poem with Solon’s political program.  Whether or not we agree with Falkner’s positive assessment of the poem’s aesthetic, one thing is very clear: Solon’s descriptions of age are highly atypical and seem to eschew (if not refute) conventional symbolism. Do you think that the “Ten Ages” simply ignores traditional lyric representations of youth and old age, or is there some way (ANY way) in which the poem is in dialogue with the conventional tropes? Wednesday“Youth, Old Age, and Mortality in Lyric” (Heather Vincent, Eckerd College) Sixth Common Session (October 30)  Greek Reading:300-level: Anacreon frr. 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 363, 364, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 378, 381, 383, 386, 388, 389, 393, 395, 396, 397, 398, 400, 402, 407, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414 (w/ testimonia), 415, 417, 427, 428, 433, 434, 439, 450, 481; eleg. 2  (~750 words)

200-level: Anacreon ffr. 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 372, 373, 374,

375, 376, 388, 395, 396, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414 (w/ testimonia), 417, 428, eleg. 2 (~ 460 words) Please read:Rosenmeyer, Patricia. 2006, 1-49. Introduction: the Anacreontic question and Origins: the role of Anacreon as model. In The Poetics of Imitation: Anacreon and the Anacreontic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressLadianou, Katerina. 2005. The Poetics of Choreia: Imitation and Dance in the Anacreontea. Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica 80:47-60. [Stable JSTOR URL] w/ supplementary Anacreon in Lattimore's collection (45-46).Please take 300-350 words and discuss the following: What themes and images does Anacreon's poetry share with the other poets you have read so far in the course? Find analogies and differences. Compare and contrast.Directions: After selecting a theme, e.g. love, some working questions could be: What image(s) does Sappho present of love? Is Anacreon's take different?  If so, how do their views differ? How do they envisage their relationships? What kind of feelings are portrayed? In what kind of way? What kind of imagery is used? Wednesday “Images in Lyric” (Danilo Piana, Johns Hopkins)Presentation Seventh Common Session (November 6)  Greek Reading:300-level: Pindar Olympian 1 (and commentary), Isthmian 1; Bacchylides 3 (and commentary)

200-level: Pindar Olympian 1.1-58 (and commentary), Isthmian 1; Bacchylides 3 (and commentary) Resources for Pindar: For Olymp. 1: Dickey, Eleanor and Richard Hamilton. New Selected Odes of Pindar. 2 vols. (Text and Commentary). Bryn Mawr PA: Bryn Mawr Greek Commentaries.

Lexical aide:  W.J. Slater's Lexicon to Pindar (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0072&redirect=true)

Running Vocabulary for Olympian 1 Common Session assignment:

Read:Both levels: Olympian 11 (in English)  Please take 300-400 words and discuss the following: Please do two things for me:  (1) Read Pindar's Olympian 1, Olympian 11, Isthmian 1, and Bacchylides 3.  What are the basic elements of a poem celebrating a victor ("epinician")?  You may want to focus on the final three poems and then try to identify those elements in Olympian 1.  What is the purpose of an epinician poem?  Then tell me (2) why in Olympian 1 Pindar reaches outside of his contemporary context to connect with the heroic age by recounting Greek myths.  What do you suppose is the relationship between history and myth?   Wednesday “Epinician: Pindar & Bacchylides” (Joe Romero, University of Mary Washington)Presentation Eighth Common Session (November 13)  Greek reading:300-Level: Sappho 1 (and commentary) (review); 16 (and commentary) (review); Pindar, Olympian 10 (705 words)

200-Level: Sappho 1 (and commentary), 16 (and commentary), 31 (and commentary) (review); Pindar, Olympian 4 (418 words)Common Session assignment:Read:Sappho 1, 16, 31, and 55 in Carson's translation. Pindar's First, Second, and Fourth Olympian Odes in Race (Pindar: Olympian Odes, Pythian Odes (Harvard University Press, 1997).Nancy Felson, "Vicarious Fictive Deixis in Pindar's Pythian Four" in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 99, (1999), pp. 1-31.Please take 300-400 words and discuss the following: In this writing assignment, you will discover the ancient Greek lyric by writing one—in English. Read the full prompt, here.

Wednesday “Performance and Metric Composition” (Ron Stottlemyer, Carroll College) Ninth Common Session (November 20)  Greek reading 300-Level: Stesichorus P. Lille lines 201-234 [pp. 136-138 in Campbell] (164 words; 33 lines)Aeschylus Suppliant Women 524-599 (282 words; 75 lines)Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus 668-719 (201 words; 51 lines)Euripides Iphigeneia at Aulis 1036-1097 (210 words; 61 lines) 200-Level: Stesichorus P. Lille lines 201-234 [pp. 136-138 in Campbell] (164 words; 33 lines)Aeschylus Suppliant Women 524-599 (282 words; 75 lines)Common Session assignment:English reading assignment (both levels):Lucretius On the Nature of Things 1.1-101Theocritus Idyll 16andH. Parry, The Lyric Poems of Greek Tragedy, pp. 47-70. Watch:Video clips: Aeschylus' Agamamenon and Gospel at ColonusPlease take 300-400 words and discuss the following: By this time in the course, you can claim to have “received” a significant amount of Greek lyric poetry, and over the course of your lives, no doubt, you have passively "received" much more. For this week, as you read some Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, draw out one similarity and one difference for each regarding the form and content of the tragic chorus in comparison with the other lyricists you have read in the course. More generally, keep in mind this question: How have the tragic playwrights and other authors assigned this week, received, reacted to, and expanded the lyric tradition? Wednesday “Receiving Greek Lyric” (D. Ben DeSmidt, Carthage College) Tenth Common Session (December 4) 

 Greek reading:Sappho fragments 58-59 (the "new" Sappho) in Obbink, Dirk. 2011.Alcaeus: 34(a), 45, 140, 208, 338, 347, 360 (and commentary [34(a), 45, 338, 347]) Common Session assignment:

Please read:Selections of Alcaeus in Lattimore, 42-44.Nagy, Gregory. 2007, 211-269. "Did Sappho and Alcaeus ever meet? Symmetries of myth and ritual in performing the songs of ancient Lesbos." In Literatur und Religion I. Wege zu einer mythisch–rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen. Edited by A. Bierl, R. Lämmle, K. Wesselmann. Berlin.Review pages 19-23 of Gregory Nagy, 2007, “Lyric and Greek Myth,” in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, ed. R.D. Woodward, Cambridge University Press. Please take 300-400 words and discuss the following: In "Did Sappho and Alcaeus Ever Meet?" I argue that the traditions attributed to Alcaeus and Sappho are linked by symmetries of opposed pairs such as disequilibrium and equilibrium, profane and sacred. How are such symmetries relevant to the relationship between ancient Greek myth and ritual generally? I also argue that themes and contexts associated with Dionysus help to link the songs attributed to Alcaeus and Sappho. How is the shifting perspective of lyric relevant to the god Dionysus? How is the fragmentation and recomposition of these poetic personas related to multiformity and composition-in-performance? Wednesday “Myth and Lyric” (Greg Nagy, Harvard University)