The Art of Bacchylides

by: Burnett, A.P.

Anne Burnett shows us the art of Bacchyl- ides in the context of Greek lyric traditions. She discusses the beginnings of choral poetry and the functions of the choral myth; she describes the purposes of the victory song in particular and the practices of Bac- chylides and Pindar as they fulfilled their victory commissions. In analyzing individual poems Burnett?s approach is two-fold, for each ode is seen as a choral performance reflecting archaic cult practice, while it is also studied as the expression of a particular poetic vision and sensibility. Thus the formal elements of the Bacchylidean victory songs are recognized as the response of a chorus which must give semi-religious praise to a noble athlete or prize-winning prince in times of increasing democracy. At the same time an artistry and an ethic peculiar to Bacchylides are discovered in the manipulation of fictions and mythic materials. / CONTENTS Introduction 1. The Choral Mode 2. Theseus? Dive: Ode Seventeen 3. The Epinician Burden 4. Bearing the Burden 5. Hieron and Croesus: Ode Three 6. The Cut of the Myth: Ode Thirteen 7. Inauspicious Tales: Odes Nine and Eleven 8. The Tragic Muse: Odes Eighteen and Sixteen 9. Heracles and Meleager: Ode Five Appendix: Ode One Notes Index of Passages Index of Subjects.

The Art of Bacchylides

by: Burnett, A.P.

• ISBN-13: 9780674046665 / 978-0-674-04666-5
• ISBN-03: 0674046668 / 0-674-04666-8
• Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985