Sound, Sense, and Rhythm: Listening to Greek and Latin Poetry

This book concerns the way we read--or rather, imagine we are listening to--ancient Greek and Latin poetry. Through clear and penetrating analysis Mark Edwards shows how an understanding of the effects of word order and meter is vital for appreciating the meaning of classical poetry, composed for listening audiences.

The first of four chapters examines Homer's emphasis of certain words by their positioning; a passage from the Iliad is analyzed, and a poem of Tennyson illustrates English parallels. The second considers Homer's techniques of disguising the break in the narrative when changing a scene's location or characters, to maintain his audience's attention. In the third we learn, partly through an English translation matching the rhythm, how Aeschylus chose and adapted meters to arouse listeners' emotions. The final chapter examines how Latin poets, particularly Propertius, infused their language with ambiguities and multiple meanings. An appendix examines the use of classical meters by twentieth-century American and English poets.

Based on the author's Martin Classical Lectures at Oberlin College in 1998, this book will enrich the appreciation of classicists and their students for the immense possibilities of the languages they read, translate, and teach. Since the Greek and Latin quotations are translated into English, it will also be welcomed by non-classicists as an aid to understanding the enormous influence of ancient Greek and Latin poetry on modern Western literature.

"Sound, Sense, and Rhythm is superb. Among its many virtues are a remarkable mastery of technical aspects of ancient verse, providing a treasurehouse of information for classicists and other professionals; the excellent use of modern and/or contemporary literature to help explain ancient practice, and the clear and graceful writing."--Thomas Van Nortwick, Oberlin College

"Mark Edwards provides an extraordinarily sensitive and intelligent reading of the poems on which he focuses. Every classroom instructor teaching Greek or Roman poetic texts deserves the opportunity to read his book, both for its wonderful particulars and for its important general principles."--Steven Fineberg, Knox College

Listening to Greek and Latin Poetry.

Mark W. Edwards is Emeritus Professor of Classics at Stanford University. He is the author of "Homer: Poet of the Iliad" and Volume 5 of "The Iliad: A Commentary".

Preface ix

CHAPTER ONE: Homer I: Poetry and Speech 1

The Older Discoveries: Frankel 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 11: 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 (Agamemnon 104-257) 71

The Second Choral Song (Agamemnon 367-488) 81

The Third Choral Song (Agamemnon 681-781) 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

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