Μπολιbaρ, by Nikos Engonopoulos: Sculptural Monuments and the Poetics of Praise from Pindar to Abraham Lincoln (original) (raw)
Related papers
“Choral Lyric as ‘Ritualization’: Poetic Sacrifice and Poetic Ego in Pindar’s Sixth Paian”
2005
The ego or speaking subject of Pindar's Sixth Paian is anomalous, as has been acknowledged by many scholars. In a genre whose ego is predominantly choral, the speaking subject at the beginning of Paian 6 differentiates himself from the chorus and confidently analogizes his poetic authority to the prophetic power of Delphi by his self-description as ο διµον Πιερ δων προφ ταν. I would like to correlate Pindar's exceptional ego in this poem with what has recently emerged as the poem's exceptional performance context. Following Ian Rutherford's 1997 discovery of a second marginal title for the third triad ("For the Aeginetans, a prosodion to Aiakos"), we might postulate performance by two choruses: the first two triads sung by a Delphian chorus stationary at the altar, the last triad sung by an Aeginetan chorus as they process to the altar. The need to reconcile within the poem and the space of performance two choruses, two communities, and two local mythic traditions generates the strikingly prominent speaking subject of Paian 6 as a mediating figure.
António Dinis da Cruz e Silva, member of Arcádia Lusitana, the literary academy he helped to found, introduced the Pindaric ode to the Portuguese literature of the neoclassical period (18th century). This poet imitates the triadic form and the mythological nature of Pindar’s encomiastic poetry, in order to celebrate the deeds of reputed historical figures from the national context, such as sailors, captains, politicians, and even the king himself. As in Pindar’s poetry, the mythological excursus holds an important part in Cruz e Silva’s Pindaric poetry. Winners of athletic games are acclaimed through allusion to the ancient heroes. Likewise, the heroes of the Portuguese history see themselves turned into immortals, since their deeds are reported as comparatively greater than those of Homeric warriors. Among the 44 Cruz e Silva’s Pindaric odes, 18 rewrite the myth of the Trojan War, from its beginnings with Eris (Odes I-II) to its outcome with the imperishable fame of the most conspicuous Homeric fighters (Ode XLII). These 18 compositions (re)tell, in a neoclassical style, the main scenes and themes of the Iliad and Odyssey, alluding directly to their heroes’ deeds. Achilles’ wrath and Hector’s death are topics repeatedly brought up in Cruz e Silva’s Pindaric poetry as models of courage and patriotism for national heroes. This chapter offers a discussion of Cruz e Silva’s neoclassical representation of the Trojan War. To this effect, an interdisciplinary approach is adopted, showing how the Portuguese poet handles the mythological material from Homer and Pindar. In this way, he initiated in 18th-century Portuguese literature a new literary genre, the Pindaric ode. By dealing with Poetry and History, Cruz e Silva perpetuated the life and fame of national heroes long after their deaths.
What does it mean to write a life? For most of us, our initial tendency is to conceive of biography in terms of genre. We look, with Momigliano, for 'an account of the life of a man from birth to death'. 1 But Aristotle's insight that the full span of a single life is not the only, or best, means of achieving a totality is no less relevant to the study of biography than to the epics about which the judgement was originally conceived. 2 The form of a biography is as important as the content narrated therein; it puts forth an implicit definition of the idea of a 'life'. In the creative spirit of this volume's title, we would do well to broaden the category of ancient biography to include less traditional forms of life writing. Here I present my case for doing so in the form of one very particular example: I propose the great fifth-century lyric poet Pindar for inclusion among the ranks of ancient biographers. Recent years have seen a welcome broadening of our approach to life writing in the ancient world. As we have moved away from judgements based on rigid historical criteria , we have come to appreciate the creativity and literary insight that helped to shape the many poetic bioi that have been preserved alongside the texts from which they stem and which they were designed to illuminate. 3 Guided by the work of Fairweather, Lefkowitz and Graziosi, we have come to view the ancient bioi as records of a rich literary-critical history that has, for the most part, been lost to us. In presenting us with poetic lives, the writers of the bioi offer a special type of literary analysis: biographical interpretation. Modern students of Pindar have much to learn from the insightful analysis of his ancient biographers, and
13th International Language, Literature and Stylistics Symposium: Simple Style - Symposium Proceedings
Beginning with the criticism in antiquity scholars have commonly perceived Bacchylides “the Cean nightingale” and Pindar “the Theban eagle,” as two rival poets in epinician poetry with totally different styles. Dionysius of Halicarnassus is one of the earliest critics who explores this stylistic bifurcation clearly. Dionysius’ distinction between “austere” (austêra) and “polished” (glaphyra) forms of composition makes the identification of the prominent bifurcation between the styles of Bacchylides and Pindar possible. Defining this stylistic bifurcation accurately is only possible by scrutinizing the categories represented by the music in the archaic epoch, which is an integral part of epinician poetry. These musical categories clarify how the style chosen by the Archaic Greek poet is parallel to the ethical references of the performed music of epinician. In this paper which takes its point of departure from the above-mentioned stylistic bifurcation, I will argue that both poets have their “unique” expressions in stylistic contexts via a comparative study of some pieces of Bacchylides’ and Pindar’s victory odes. This work was supported by Scientific Research Project Coordination Unit of Istanbul University, project number: 13281.
"Pindar's Material Imaginary: Dedication and Politics in Olympian 7," UCL Housman Lecture
UCL Department of Greek and Latin: UCL Housman Lecture 2015, 2016
The paper considers Pindar’s pervasive analogizing of his epinikia to precious wrought objects, as well as his frequent recourse to the language of the erection and inscription of dedicated monuments for his own poetic activity. I focus particularly on the phenomenology, power relations, and politics of such material objects and monuments embedded within Pindar’s texts. Thus, in contrast to the usual reading of these concrete images as a means by which Pindar asserts the immortalizing power of his poetry, I want to try to resituate Pindar’s metaphorical objects within a phenomenology of ancient religious art, considering the power and active agency believed to inhere in such objects in their interaction with human subjects. I suggest that these Pindaric objects participate much more than has been acknowledged in ancient perceptions of the magical or talismanic qualities of statues and other forms of religious art. Having developed this argument in the first half of the essay, I focus in the second half on a particular case study—that of Olympian 7. For here, we may have a poem that was commissioned and composed with the explicit intention of being set up as a lavish dedicatory monument. I argue that we can track Pindar’s consciousness of such a material, dedicatory purpose for this particular epinikion inscribed within the text itself. I then consider the political implications of such a real-world materialization of Pindaric song.
Epinician Virtue-Signaling: The Poetics of Aretê in Pindar's Victory Odes
in Reid H; Serrati J (Ed.), Ageless Aretē: Essays from the 6th Interdisciplinary Conference on the Hellenic Heritage of Sicily and Southern Italy (Sioux City, Iowa: Parnassos Press) 67-90, 2022
Pindar's celebration of victory often focuses on ἀρετή, a multi-faceted word attested in Homer with connotations of martial valour or athletic "excellence". While Plato, Aristotle and others aligned it more fully with personal, ethical virtue, ἀρετή continued to convey nuances of public success and athletic prowess into the Roman period, as evidenced by inscriptions (IvO 225, etc.) and sources such as Lucian (Anach. 13-14, 36), Philostratus (Gym. 45) and Galen (5.906.15 Kühn), among others. In Pindar ἀρετή retains these agonistic, heroic features, while also embracing more ethical and intellectual elements, all of which the poet considers he shares with his patrons. It becomes a goal for the poet and patron alike, and a source of κλέος for both; ἀρετή has implications for the poet's construction of his own role and identity, which he makes a lynch-pin between his patrons and himself.