Poetry in public: reperformance and publication of archaic Greek epigram

Anderson, Adrian Sebastian

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/101304 Copy

Description

Title

Poetry in public: reperformance and publication of archaic Greek epigram

Author(s)

Anderson, Adrian Sebastian

Issue Date

2018-04-16

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Williams, Craig

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Williams, Craig

Committee Member(s)

• Tzanetou, Angeliki
• Bosak-Schroeder, Clara
• Day, Joseph

Department of Study

Classics

Discipline

Classics

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Epigram
• Greek Poetry
• Archaic Greece
• Symposium
• Epitaph
• Reperformance
• Publication
• Public
• Private
• Simonides
• Theognis
• Literacy
• Greek alphabet
• Inscription
• Commemoration

Abstract

This dissertation examines Archaic Greek epigram in its context (cultural, historical, physical, etc.), with particular focus on its ancient reading and reception. My study contributes to our understanding of the performance culture of Archaic Greece, whereby, scholars have argued, poems and their meanings are intimately tied to their occasion and performative context. Epigram contributes in interesting ways to this narrative, for these inscribed texts are both tied to their physical and material contexts, and, as I argue with respect to our earliest examples, composed explicitly for future readers. In Chapter 2, I critique an interpretive frame based on the dichotomy of public and private and offer a conceptual model for studying epigram based on ancient concepts. I apply this model to two case studies, two Archaic cemeteries where multiple contemporary funerary epigrams survive. I reconstruct ancient readings of these texts, emphasizing their dialogue with one another and their contexts. In Chapter 3, I contribute to our understanding of the Greek symposium. I analyze some of our earliest Greek alphabetic texts alongside the poetry of Theognis, highlighting the themes of ownership, theft, reading, and reperformance at symposia. I then study the social relationships that are indicated in such texts, particularly philia, and I consider expressions of this discourse in other epigrammatic contexts, especially funerary. I conclude with a study of the word philemosyne, which appears in an interestingly broad variety of epigrams. In Chapter 4, I consider Simonides and perceived changes in epigrammatic commemoration at the end of the Archaic period. Such epigrams might be characterized as political or historical in nature, and I consider the applicability of concepts of authority to their study. I show how diverse individuals memorialized themselves via mnemata and indicate the complex processes by which such texts were received or rejected by their readers.

Graduation Semester

2018-05

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101304

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2018 Adrian Sebastian Anderson

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