West (trans.), Greek lyric poetry, (Oxford World’s Classics, OUP, 2008) Introduction: the nature of Ancient Greek epic and iambic poetryĥ. To gain a good understanding of key terms of analysis, including Ancient Greek words and metrical termsġ.To gain a good understanding of the historical context in which it was produced.To gain a good understanding of the actual content of Ancient Greek lyric poetry.The learning outcomes for this course are: Handouts of all passages for discussion will be distributed in each class. We will then study the early choral poet Alcman, then Sappho and Alcaeus and finally Stesichorus, whose lyrics paved the way for Bacchylides and Pindar.

We will start briefly with the epic background in Homer and Hesiod then move to Archilochus, an iambic poet of the previous generation. But these poets also belong to a wider circle of hugely important archaic Greek poets such as Homer, Hesiod and Archilochus and to get a better understanding of lyric we will spend some time with all of them. These poets all belong to the world of ‘Archaic Greece’, a Mediterranean world that is bustling with trade in commerce and, equally importantly, ideas: this age witnesses the rise of the Greek polis against the backdrop of Persian aggression, the consolidation of writing as a medium for poetic expression (and otherwise) and the miracle of rationalism that was to become Greek philosophy and science. In this course of lectures we will seek to read all that has survived of Ancient Greek lyric and to contextualize it. What has survived of this poetry is beautiful, significant and recently augmented through exciting discoveries in papyrology. But these poets were highly regarded in antiquity and Sappho in particular has rightly seen her fortunes rise recently. The work of the Ancient Greek lyric poets suffered badly with the onset of the Dark Ages only a small portion of their work survives.

Greek Lyric Poetry by M.L. West