Sophocles Influence On Homer's Odyssey
GREEK POETS
HOMER
Homer was the most important and earliest of the Greek and Roman writers. Greeks and Romans didn't count themselves educated unless they knew his poems. His influence was felt not only on literature, but on ethics and morality via lessons from his masterpieces. He is the first source to look for information on Greek myth and religion. Yet, despite his prominence, we have no firm evidence that he ever lived.
The Greek poet Homer was born sometime between the 12th and 8th centuries BC, possibly somewhere on the coast of Asia Minor. He is famous for the epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, which have had an enormous effect on Western culture, but very little is known about their alleged author.
The Mystery of Homer
Homer …show more content…
He was born at Eleusis in 525 B.C.E., served in the Athenian army, and fought in the pivotal battles of the great Greek war with the Persians, including at Marathon. He showed himself as a great writer at a young age, but did not win a dramatic competition before his late 30s. After that, he won nearly every time he entered, until he reached the age of 50 and Sophocles arrived on the scene. The two of them struggled back and forth for years for top honors. After the performance of his Oresteia, 459 B.C.E., he left home for Sicily, perhaps in response to the growing power of the democracy (toward which he had nuanced views), and was killed, says one story, by an eagle dropping a tortoise on his bare skull. The Sicilians honored him with a splendid monument. A century later, the Athenians, on the motion of the orator Lycurgus, placed a brazen statue of him, as well as of Sophocles and Euripides, in the theater. His tragedies, like those of Sophocles and Euripides, were preserved in a special standard copy to guard them against arbitrary alterations. …show more content…
Boeotia was considered somewhat backwards. This influence may explain Pindar's conservatism, although he studied music (stringed instruments and the aulos 'flute') at the center of Greek culture, in Athens, where he studied lyric composition under Agathocles, Apollodorus, and Lasus of Hermione, following his initial instruction at home under Scopelinus, who may have been his father or uncle. Sandys says his parents were Daiaphantus and Cleodice. He returned to his homeland of Thebes at about age 20 when he started his career as a lyric poet.
Pindar's Lyric Poetry
He is said to have been a contemporary of the poet Corinna, who beat him in poetic competition. Pindar, however, won first place in the dithyrambic competition at the Great Dionysia in c. 497/6.
Pindar's 44 epinicia (victory odes) are divided into Olympic, Pythian (the time of Pindar's birth, noted above)), Isthmian, and Nemean, for the names of the Panhellenic games.
The term Pindaric ode refers to a verse form used primarily in England in the 17th and 18th cent. The form, based on a somewhat faulty understanding of the metrical pattern used by Pindar, originated with Abraham Cowley in his Pindarique Odes (1656) and was later used by John Dryden, among others. It is characterized by irregularity in the rhyme scheme, length of the stanzas, and number of stresses in a line.
SOPHOCLES
Dates: c. 496-406
HOMER
Homer was the most important and earliest of the Greek and Roman writers. Greeks and Romans didn't count themselves educated unless they knew his poems. His influence was felt not only on literature, but on ethics and morality via lessons from his masterpieces. He is the first source to look for information on Greek myth and religion. Yet, despite his prominence, we have no firm evidence that he ever lived.
The Greek poet Homer was born sometime between the 12th and 8th centuries BC, possibly somewhere on the coast of Asia Minor. He is famous for the epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, which have had an enormous effect on Western culture, but very little is known about their alleged author.
The Mystery of Homer
Homer …show more content…
He was born at Eleusis in 525 B.C.E., served in the Athenian army, and fought in the pivotal battles of the great Greek war with the Persians, including at Marathon. He showed himself as a great writer at a young age, but did not win a dramatic competition before his late 30s. After that, he won nearly every time he entered, until he reached the age of 50 and Sophocles arrived on the scene. The two of them struggled back and forth for years for top honors. After the performance of his Oresteia, 459 B.C.E., he left home for Sicily, perhaps in response to the growing power of the democracy (toward which he had nuanced views), and was killed, says one story, by an eagle dropping a tortoise on his bare skull. The Sicilians honored him with a splendid monument. A century later, the Athenians, on the motion of the orator Lycurgus, placed a brazen statue of him, as well as of Sophocles and Euripides, in the theater. His tragedies, like those of Sophocles and Euripides, were preserved in a special standard copy to guard them against arbitrary alterations. …show more content…
Boeotia was considered somewhat backwards. This influence may explain Pindar's conservatism, although he studied music (stringed instruments and the aulos 'flute') at the center of Greek culture, in Athens, where he studied lyric composition under Agathocles, Apollodorus, and Lasus of Hermione, following his initial instruction at home under Scopelinus, who may have been his father or uncle. Sandys says his parents were Daiaphantus and Cleodice. He returned to his homeland of Thebes at about age 20 when he started his career as a lyric poet.
Pindar's Lyric Poetry
He is said to have been a contemporary of the poet Corinna, who beat him in poetic competition. Pindar, however, won first place in the dithyrambic competition at the Great Dionysia in c. 497/6.
Pindar's 44 epinicia (victory odes) are divided into Olympic, Pythian (the time of Pindar's birth, noted above)), Isthmian, and Nemean, for the names of the Panhellenic games.
The term Pindaric ode refers to a verse form used primarily in England in the 17th and 18th cent. The form, based on a somewhat faulty understanding of the metrical pattern used by Pindar, originated with Abraham Cowley in his Pindarique Odes (1656) and was later used by John Dryden, among others. It is characterized by irregularity in the rhyme scheme, length of the stanzas, and number of stresses in a line.
SOPHOCLES
Dates: c. 496-406