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LYRIC POETRY crranslated by Warren R. Castle and L. R. Lind INTRODUCTION To THE Greeks the word lyric designated only that poetry which was sung to the accompaniment of the IYTe; they had no general term to designate that vast body of poetry which was neither epic nor dramatic. We use the word lyric to fill this deficiency, meaning by it to describe all personal utterance which, by and large, expresses the emotional response of the individual to his own world. Such poetry assumed two forms, monodic and choral. In the former, the poet spoke of and for himself; in the latter he spoke for the group with which he identified himself. The roots of lyric poetry go deep into the remotest past. Homer mentions hymns and cbants connected with religious ceremonies. There were wedding chants, funeral dirges, and paeans of thanksgiving, as well as rustic chants of various kinds, all of which were wholly popular in nature. True poets were interested only in the epic which sang the glories of an ideal heroic past. Sometime in the eighth century, however, when epic poetry more or less died out, poets turned to the contemporary world as a subject for art, and lYTic poetry began to come to full splendor. This shift from the epic to the lYTic was a reflection of the transformation which was taking place in the social structure of the time. Patriarchal kingdoms in which the individual was suhmerged gave way to tYTannies, revolutions, and the first experiments in democracy. Civic patriotism and interest in politics deepened. Fur· ther, it was an age of exploration, colonization, and commercial exploitation. In the midst of this widening experience and political upheaval, the individual sought to find himself and define his relation to the rapidly shifting social organization. So for the next few cen· turies the great names in poetry were those of the lyricists, such as Archilochus, Mimnermus, Sappho, AIcaeus , Solon, Simonides, and Pindar, until finally lyric poetry gave way to the drama which largely absorbed both it and the epic. Though it later regained briefly some of its former splendor in the idylls of Theocritus, in subsequent centuries it ceased to be national and popular and became the property of cosmopolitan intellectuals and professional scholars. These men, though not great poets themselves, continued to cultivate poetry as an art, usually pedantically, but often with fine taste. In addition to writing poetry themselves, they sometimes made anthologies of the works of former poets, in which they included their own poems. The result of their labors was that unique phe. nomenon, the Greek Anthology, a collection of poems covering more than a thousand years. Most of these are short poems, which the Greeks called epigrams, written in elegiac couplets, the ancient equivalent of our heroic couplets. Many of them are like carved gems. There are love poems, epitaphs, prayers, dedications, satires, and many other kinds. Some of the later poems in the collection , like the epigrams of Meleager and Philodemus, are notable for their cosmopolitan outlook and luxuriant fancy. The writers of the Greek Anthology are included here in one convenient unit, though in date some of them are a thousand years later than the first lYTic poets. Greek lyric poetry differs from modem poetry in several important respects and, without going into disputed matters, I should like to give some idea of what these are. There was, first, always some connection with instrumental music. The importance of the musical accompaniment varied with the different types. Sometimes, as in the case of iambic poetry, which was originally satirical, it consisted of merely a few notes intended to provide a background for the voice of the reciter. Again, the elegy, originally chanted with a flute accompaniment, soon lost the musical element; if used at all, this served as a prelude to the poem. Other forms, like the light odes of Sappho and Terpander, were sung to the accompaniment of an instrumental melody. These types were real songs in the modem sense. Of course, the music was all very simple and would sound pretty thin to the modern ear. The instruments were few, various types of flutes and stringed devices, always plucked, never bowed. Har· mony was practically unknown. The aesthetic effect of such music on the modern ear would be something like that of Greek vase painting on the eye. The essential qualities were simplicity and exquisite clarity. It should be remembered, however, that of the two elements, poetry and music...

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