[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 325 KB, 1363x1129, pepe doesn't understand.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
17847058 No.17847058 [Reply] [Original]

How did Greek poetry have more of a musical rhythm than other language's poetry?

>> No.17847071

>>17847058
Ancient Greek words have syllables with rising and descending pitch as well as distinctly long and short syllables

>> No.17847335

>>17847058
The Greek language for Homer's epics and hymns was practically invented for hexameter poetry.
Here's my evidence, in the intro of the Iliad.
>The language of Homer is of course a problem in itself. One thing is certain: it is not a language anyone ever spoke. It is an artificial poetic language.......... It was brimful of archaisms - of vocabulary, syntax, and grammar- and of incongruities: words and forms drawn from different dialects and different stages of the growth of the language. In fact the language of Homer was one nobody, except epic bards, oracular priests or literary parodists would dream of using.
as to the growth of the language the intro says this
>The Mycenaean scribes had used the complicated Linear B syllabary- eighty seven signs for different combinations of consonant and vowel. It was a system only professional scribes could handle; in any case, all memory of it was lost with the destruction of the Mycenaean centers in the twelfth century B.C. The Greeks did not learn to write till much later. This time, they took over an alphabet of fewer than twenty five letters from the Phoenicians.......... The greeks appropriated their symbols (alpha and beta are meaningless in Greek, but their Pheonician equivalents, Aleph and Beth, mean "ox" and "house"), but by assiging some of the letters to the vowels, they created the first efficient alphabet, a letter system that provided one, and only one, sign for each sound in the language.
There was a hodgepodge of spoken language in the ancient Mediterranean, and a rudimentary form of Greek that Homer (or whoever you believe wrote the epics) took, improved upon it to better fit hexameter, and played it at events and for aristocratic families (which were the people who could best understand it, and to be blunt, afford a bard to play for them)
For my evidence for this argument I will use Martin L. West's intro to Hymn to Aphrodite in which Aphrodite takes her first mortal lover through the workings of Zeus, and tells the lover that he must never tell anyone Aeneas' mother is the goddess, but rather a nymph
>... It does not serve to document the goddess's divine power but rather a temporary weakness to which she succumbed and of which she is somewhat ashamed....... Aphrodite tells Anchises that "you are to have a dear son who will rule among the Trojans, as will the children born to his children continually" The inference is that there was a princely family in the Troad in the poet's time that claimed descent from Aenas and suzerainty over "Trojans." The hymn was composed for the gratification of this family rather than of the goddess.
You can see Shakespeare attempting a similar thing with his sonnets.

>> No.17847422
File: 23 KB, 894x773, wojak big mouth.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
17847422

>>17847071
>Ancient Greek words have syllables with rising and descending pitch as well as distinctly long and short syllables
We don't have that?

>> No.17847444
File: 121 KB, 997x602, 1612364569208.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
17847444

>>17847335
you know OP, in a round about way, by answering your question, you helped me connect ideas, and greatly appreciate the depth and creativity of the poems.
thanks faggot

>> No.17848005

>>17847444
My unconscious action was your growing inspiration.

>> No.17848089

>>17847422
No.

>> No.17848240

>>17848089
How so?

>> No.17848767

bump.

>> No.17848775

pedophiles had rhythm

>> No.17848786

>>17848775
>the Greeks were paedophiles
Even within the false narrative which is repeated, they weren't paedophiles.

>> No.17848804

I don't know, but Greece has the single best poetry of any nation ever. Even modern Greek poetry BTFOs the poetry of any other nations. Yannis Ritsos being the single best poet to ever exist post-1500 AD.

>> No.17848812

>>17848804
name a single good ancient greek poetry

>> No.17848817

>>17848812
urmomanme hadsexicus

>> No.17848831

>>17848812
Is it fun pretending to be retarded on the internet? Do you feel good?

>> No.17848841

>>17848804
Modern Greek poetry cannot compare to modern German poetry, and ancient Greek poetry is superior to German poetry.

>> No.17848844

>>17848804
>Yannis Ritsos being the single best poet to ever exist post-1500 AD.
Why are modern Greeks like this?

>> No.17848849

>>17848841
Rilke is the only good modern German poet. The best poets of the modern era are the English Romantics, the American Transcendentalists, and of course Yannis Ritsos and the Greek post-war poetry scene.

>> No.17848851

>>17848831
name one you miserable weasel

>> No.17848853

>>17848851
Homer you fucking retard

>> No.17848880

>>17848853
>homer
>a poetry
ok fag

>> No.17848890

i hate this board

>> No.17848902

>>17848849
>Holderlin and Goethe weren't good poets

>> No.17849186

>>17848890
I love you.

>> No.17849257

>>17847058
What do you mean by musical rhythm?
>>17847422
Pitch in English conveys meaning of course but in Ancient Greek it has an importance like that of stress in English, it distinguishes words otherwise identical and follows various rules. Here are the first hundred lines of the Iliad spoken: https://soundcloud.com/stefan-hagel-448623467/il-1-1-100-spoken

>>17848849
Yeah no.

>> No.17849281

>>17849257
>What do you mean by musical rhythm?
The rhythm of Greek tragedy is preserved in their words, as for their melodies we have almost none. This is the only I've heard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn7jvHI2kU4

Sure is spooky.

>> No.17849829

bum

>> No.17850467

bump!