An abstract of a commentary - which must follow the winds and turns of the text it explains - cannot reasonably be expected. The present opportunity may, however, be used to summarise the principles behind my own specimen. Any commentary tries (at least in theory) to examine its subject's work from as many viewpoints - historical, philological, etc. - as are appropriate and possible. When the works, like Stesichorus', only exist in a highly fragmentary state, this impossible ideal seems slightly more capable of fulfilment than usual: there is less text and so more time (and space) to explain it. This approach from a large number of different viewpoints is not only more attainable in Stesichorus' case, it is more necessary: isolated scraps of poetry, whose context is often totally uncertain, require full examination before their secrets can be yielded up. Hence, for instance, the amount of effort devoted by other scholars - and now by me - to the subject of Stesichorus and art. And hence the exceedingly detailed scope of the commentary. For evern one word fragments have a philological and, sometimes, a stylistic value. And the speculation of earlier critics must be evaluated and preserved if plausible, or candidly denounced if unlikely, in an attempt to prevent repetition of the error.

Since its earliest appearance, the word $ tau upsilon rho alpha nu nu acute iota varsigma$ referred to absolute rule obtained in defiance of any constitution that existed previously. In early Greek lyric poetry, tyranny is represented as a divine blessing, but one that meets with opposition against the tyrant and puzzlement at the behaviour of the gods. In Archilochus and elsewhere tyrannical ambition is termed eros. The common property that makes both tyranny and beauty objects of eros is luminosity: As the 'radiance' $ rm( lambda alpha mu pi rho acute o tau eta varsigma)$ of beauty is to the lover, so the 'splendour' $ rm( lambda alpha mu pi rho acute o tau eta varsigma)$ of tyranny is to the tyrannical "lover". The major symbol of tyrannical luminosity is gold. Conspicuous use of wealth and women contributed to the visibility of tyrannical splendour.

No description available.

This dissertation is a study of the rhetorical uses of evaluative language in Greek lyric and elegiac poetry and inscribed epigram of the period from the seventh to the fifth century B.C.E. The discussion focuses on the poets' evaluations of human worth in three areas, each of which forms a separate chapter: martial valour, the relationship between physical appearance and inner virtue, and political or social values. Within each chapter, particular aspects of the subject under discussion are treated under separate headings. Although the literary material has been treated in various ways in the past, the inclusion of inscribed epigram alongside the other literature in this case offers evidence from a related but distinct branch of poetic tradition for the development and expression of these values; divergences between the literary and the inscriptional tradition can be quite marked, as can the different approaches taken by poets of various genres within the literary material. The attempts of previous scholarship to define clear and consistent systems or codes of value represented in the poetry and to trace their development over this period have been generally unconvincing, but the poets' deployment of evaluative language does show some discernible patterns which appear to be related more to genre and poetic tradition than to the purely chronological processes of development that have been proposed by other scholars.

This thesis applies to Archaic Greek literature the medievalist's concept of "women's songs," that is, love-poems given to a female persona and composed in a popular register. In the Greek context a distinct type can be recognised in poems of women's affections (not necessarily love-poems as such) composed in an ingenuous register and created for performance, choral or solo, within a women's thiasos. The poems studied are those of Sappho, along with the few surviving partheneia of Alcman and Pindar. The feminine is constructed, rather mechanically by Pindar, more subtly by the other two, from a combination of tender feeling, personal and natural beauty, and an artful artlessness. / It is not possible to reconstruct a paradigmatic thiasos which lies behind the women's songs, but certain characteristic features merge, especially the pervasiveness of homoerotic attachments and the combination of a personal, affective, with a social, religious function. In general, women's groups in ancient Greece must have served as a counterbalance to the prevailing male order. However, while some of the women's thiasoi provide a vehicle for the release of female aggression, the function of the present group is essentially harmonious and integrative.

No description available.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / All the poems of Catullus and Tibullus and the first three books of Horace's Odes are investigated tor structures of parallelism and inverse paralelism (chiasmus) and thus the extent to which these devices were used is determined. Such structures are demonstrated for the first time for several poems. Sometimes additions or modifications are made to the structural analyses of other scholars, and sometimes their findings are confirmed. The notion that inverse parallelism was seldom used by Roman authors is dispelled. The freedom with which these devices were used, resulting in a great variety of deviations from strictly symmetrical structures, is demonstrated Both common and idiosyncratic features in the use of the devices by the three authors are shown. Several poems of each author are discussed to illustrate that the demonstration of a structure of parallelism or inverse parallelism is in itself an interpretative act, which can at the same time serve as a basis for further interpretation. In particular it is shown that structures of inverse parallelism often, if not always, iconically reflect the meaning of the poem (hence the title of the thesis) This ability or structures of inverse parallelism to reflect the meaning of the poem may partly account for the fact that they are used more frequently than are structures of parallelism. In the poems discussed structures of inverse parallelism iconically reflect the ideas of reversal, cyclical movement, non-progression/deadlock, balance and/or contrast and enclosure, as well as combinations of the above, such as a spiral (both progression and non-progression) or the combination of reversal and nonprogression. Continuity between the structural methods of Greek and Roman authors is demonstrated, and a theoretical framework is provided, which answers the questions how such structures can be determined, and what purposes, both practical and poetic, they serve. A literary-critical awareness of inverse parallelism in Antiquity is demonstrated. St. Augustine, especially, has a fairly developed theoretical frame of reference on the subject, in his De Genest ad Litteram / Andrew Chakane 2019