Lightning Talks 2: Poetry and Language

ἄνθρωπος, like μέροψ, is of unknown etymology; it is considered a classic case of an important Greek word of pre-hellenic origin. So why does it resemble φαιδρωπός ☺ and σκυθρωπός ☹, both readily explicable? Comparison with a word for ‘hornet’ (ἀνθρηδών, suffixed with ἔδω ‘eat’) shows that it came from *arthr- dissimilated into *anthr- (cf. *δέρ-δρεϝον > δένδρεον ‘tree’).

I read Archilochus fr. 93a W (“Peisistratos’ son sailed to Thasos with men skilled in [?] pipe and lyre, bringing gifts for Thracian dogs….”) alongside an ethnomusicological observation in Theopompus: the Thracian Getae play lyres during treaty negotiations (FGrH 115 F 216). 93a criticizes, I suggest, the Naxians’ ingratiating appeal to this Thracian custom of musical diplomacy.

The tone of Ibycus’s poem for Polycrates, fragment 282a, is difficult to discern. I argue that it is a parody of epic poetics and a valorization of lyric. I identify elements by which the poet expresses his affiliation with a Western Greek poetic tradition, including allusions to Stesichorean myth, followed by a discussion of whether such a reading is possible.

This talk argues, reading Greek tragedy through Sophocles and with Latour, how tragic agency – responsibility for dire events – is distributed across a whole community or network, rather than being concentrated upon a single character or scapegoat.

My reading replaces the traditional focus on ritual, scapegoating and character flaws with the study of structural social exclusion and its devices.

This talk will examine Venus’s use of amatory language (e.g. miserae, 343; amantem, 352) to depict Dido as an elegiac lover in the generically inappropriate context of her marriage to Sychaeus, and thus to prepare her for the fuller elegiac treatment she receives from Vergil’s authorial voice in Book 4.