Pauline LeVen | Yale University (original) (raw)

Books by Pauline LeVen

Papers by Pauline LeVen

This chapter belongs to the section on "authors and forms" but the so-called "New Music" is, prop... more This chapter belongs to the section on "authors and forms" but the so-called "New Music" is, properly speaking, neither. The modern expression "New Music" refers both to a set of authors active on the Athenian theater stage between 430 and 380 bc, and to a set of formal changes that affected certain musical genres (in particular the dithyramb, the citharodic nome, and the sung parts of tragedy). But how sudden, how pervasive, and how revolutionary these changes were is difficult to establish: between the rhetoric of the New Musicians themselves, the biographical practices and ideological biases of ancient authors writing on music history, and the methodological premises of modern critics, it is very difficult to disentangle what is myth from what was reality. Nevertheless, this chapter aims at answering four questions: what is meant by the term "New Music"? What was new about the "New Music"? What did it sound, look, and feel like as experience? And what are new roads to explore the New Music? Although the questions look simple, the answers are complex and reveal why there has been a recent surge of critical interest for this fascinating phenomenon.

Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry

The late fifth-century BC 'New Music Revolution' is often presented as a watershed in the... more The late fifth-century BC 'New Music Revolution' is often presented as a watershed in the history of lyric culture and one of its most significant features identified as the greater importance of aulos-music in song-and-dance performance. In this context, a series of lyric fragments are read as testimonies for a debate about this musical change: the poetic exchange between Melanippides (fr. 758 Page) and Telestes (fr. 805 Page) about Athena's mythical rejection of the aulos; a fragment of Telestes on the archaeology of aulos music; and a fragment of Pratinas (fr. 708 Page) condemning the supremacy of Music over Song in contemporary performance, all quoted by Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae 14, 616e-617f). My presentation takes these fragments as a case study and reconsiders the link between lyric texts and 'historical contextualization' provided by Athenaeus. In addition to opening new interpretive possibilities for these lyric fragments, this study allows us to reeva...

Re-Wiring The Ancient Novel, 2 Volume set, 2019

Introduction: definitions, methods, prejudices of reception 1. A collection of unrecollected auth... more Introduction: definitions, methods, prejudices of reception 1. A collection of unrecollected authors? The corpus and its problems 2. New music and its myths: rhetoric, persona, and the theatre stage 3. Musical lives: reading through the lives of the poets 4. The language of new music: poetics of compounds and baroque aesthetics 5. From authority to fantasy: narrative, voice, fictionality 6. A canon set in stone? Epigraphy, literacy, musical tourism Conclusion.

Music and Metamorphosis in Graeco-Roman Thought, 2020

A comprehensive guide to music in Classical Antiquity and beyond Drawing on the latest research o... more A comprehensive guide to music in Classical Antiquity and beyond Drawing on the latest research on the topic, A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music provides a detailed overview of the most important issues raised by the study of ancient Greek and Roman music. An international panel of contributors, including leading experts as well as emerging voices in the eld, examine the ancient 'Art of the Muses' from a wide range of methodological, theoretical, and practical perspectives. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this book explores the pervasive presence of the performing arts in ancient Greek and Roman culture-ranging from musical mythology to music theory and education, as well as archaeology and the practicalities of performances in private and public contexts. But this Companion also explores the broader roles played by music in the Graeco-Roman world, examining philosophical, psychological, medical and political uses of music in antiquity, and aspects of its cultural heritage in Mediaeval and Modern times. This book debunks common myths about Greek and Roman music, casting light on yet unanswered questions thanks to newly discovered evidence. Each chapter includes a discussion of the tools or methodologies that are most appropriate to address different topics, as well as detailed case studies illustrating their effectiveness. This book • Offers new research insights that will contribute to the future developments of the eld, outlining new interdisciplinary approaches to investigate the importance of performing arts in the ancient world and its reception in modern culture • Traces the history and development of ancient Greek and Roman music, including their Near Eastern roots, following a thematic approach • Showcases contributions from a wide range of disciplines and international scholarly traditions • Examines the political, social and cultural implications of music in antiquity, including ethnicity, regional identity, gender and ideology • Presents original diagrams and transcriptions of ancient scales, rhythms, and extant scores that facilitate access to these vital aspects of ancient music for scholars as well as practicing musicians Written for a broad range of readers including classicists, musicologists, art historians, and philosophers, A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music provides a rich, informative and thought-provoking picture of ancient music in Classical Antiquity and beyond.

Classical Philology, 2018

Oxford Scholarship Online, 2018

This chapter investigates the notion of lyric listening and concentrates on the particular role o... more This chapter investigates the notion of lyric listening and concentrates on the particular role of the adverb δηὖτε‎ (‘once again’) in constructing a poetics of delayed repetition in several archaic melic poets (Alcman, Sappho, and Anacreon). Building on the model provided by a reading of the mythical nymph Echo in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe to understand the seduction and role of delay and repetition in lyric listening, it is argued that ‘once again’ works as a form of gramophone, allowing the listener of the poem to experience the immediacy of poetry through the imagined distance and delay introduced by the adverb.

Greek and Roman Musical Studies, 2018

This article concentrates on the description of the demise of Echo in the Ovidian narrative of Ec... more This article concentrates on the description of the demise of Echo in the Ovidian narrative of Echo and Narcissus in Metamorphoses 3. I argue that a pun in the line vox tantum atque ossa supersunt (3.398) encapsulates the problem at the heart of the myth: rather than being a reflection on the origins of the echo and the delusion of the senses, the myth of Echo is a meditation on the nature of the voice.

Classical Philology, 2016

American Journal of Philology, 2015

the narrator recedes into the background and audiences are required to exercise their imaginative... more the narrator recedes into the background and audiences are required to exercise their imaginative capacities in a way close to what LeVen describes; these poets also frequently emphasize their fictionalizing reconfiguration of their material. This is not to say that the terms of LeVen’s arguments are misguided, but that her readings would have benefited from a more fine-grained differentiation of New Musical texts from their predecessors. Such minor criticisms, however, must be set against the book’s many deft close readings and clarifications of larger problems. These combine to produce a work that deserves high praise for the skill of its responses to a challenging and fascinating body of texts.

Classical Philology, 2014

T he new music is not so new to classicists anymore. The last decade has seen an explosion of wor... more T he new music is not so new to classicists anymore. The last decade has seen an explosion of work on the topic, which has reevaluated and rehabilitated the late-fifth-century musical revolution. Most of the work has focused on the historical, cultural, and political factors that are necessary for making sense of the New Music: a style of song performed by star performers in large theaters in the last quarter of the fifth and the first quarter of the fourth century b.c.e., characterized by the complexity of its instrumental, melodic, and stylistic features, as well as by the strong feelings it produced (enthusiastic embrace by many, and equally vehement rejection by others, especially the cultural conservatives). 1 Poetic aspects, which will be the focus here, have been less prominent, but they too have received attention, most notably in the work of Eric Csapo, who has analyzed the aesthetic methods and objectives of the composers of the New Music in more helpful and illuminating terms than its detractors of earlier periods. 2 The stylistic hallmarks of the New Music have always been easy to list: elaborate images of all sorts, above all metaphors and personifications; numerous compounds, periphrases, and epithets; simple syntax. What has changed is how they are evaluated. Modern critics used to follow in the footsteps of their ancient predecessors, expressing their dislike for what they perceived as lack of taste, and often putting sweeping attacks before careful analysis. 3 At the core of their criticisms was the idea that exponents of the New Music

Inscriptions and their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature, 2013