MOISA – SCS 2023 panel: “Ancient Music and Literature”
What we call ‘music’ and ‘literature’ were inextricably linked in the Ancient World: as has been amply discussed in recent years, the art of mousikê encompassed music, song, and dance. Epic poetry was sung or chanted, dramatic performances were accompanied by dance and instrumental music, ancient Greek lyric and elegy were songs, and Latin lyric played with the memory of a performed genre. Even pure prose works could be directly linked to music, such as the nine books of Herodotus’ Histories, which came to be associated with each of the nine Muses. Inversely, instrumental programme music was directly structured on literary themes.
The relationship between music and literature created reciprocal influences: music affected literary form, content and meter, while the literary text influenced both melody and rhythm. Furthermore, musical typology was often based on the literary content of the song, while instrumentation could be a criterion for literary classification.
The present panel aims to examine this close and mutually creative interconnection of literature and music. Possible questions and topics to be investigated and discussed include (but are not limited to):
- From Homer to instrumental programme music, literary and musical form shaped one another in complex ways: how did music influence literary form, and vice versa?
- In what ways did material culture, e.g. musical instruments, artefacts, or architecture, affect literary and musical form and performance praxis?
- How can we understand ancient classifications of literature or musical genres – and how do we reflect on these categories across time?
- How is the ontology of music explored in Ancient literature? How do these discussions change with time and place?
- What is the relationship between poetic meters and musical rhythm, and how was it conceptualized in Antiquity?
- How were literary themes and musical styles connected to each other?
- How do ancient literary theory and music theory coalesce?
We invite papers from various disciplines, such as classics, musicology, historiography, and archaeology. In an effort to showcase the best papers and the most innovative research in the field of ancient music, we also welcome abstracts that deal with further interdisciplinary aspects of Greek and Roman music within the framework of the panel theme.
Abstracts for 20-minute papers to be presented at the 2023 SCS annual meeting should observe the instructions for the format of individual abstracts that appear on the SCS website. The deadline for submission is March 1st, 2022 and all prospective presenters should be SCS members in good standing at the time of submission. The panel is organized by Jonathan Söderlund, but please address your abstract or questions related to the panel to the SCS-MOISA liaison, Pauline LeVen (pauline.leven@yale.edu). In accordance with SCS regulations, all abstracts for papers will be read anonymously by two referees.