Ancient Greek dialects and early authors : introduction to the dialect mixture in Homer, with notes on lyric and Herodotus / D. Gary Miller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miller, D. Gary.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Greek language--Dialects.

Greek language.

Greek literature--History and criticism.

Greek literature.

Homer--Language.

Homer.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (476 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin : De Gruyter, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Epic is dialectally mixed but Ionic at its core. The proper dialect for elegy was Ionic, even when composed by Tyrtaeus in Sparta or Theognis in Megara, both Doric areas. Choral lyric poets represent the major dialect areas: Aeolic (Sappho, Alcaeus), Ionic (Anacreon, Archilochus, Simonides), and Doric (Alcman, Ibycus, Stesichorus, Pindar). Most distinctive are the Aeolic poets. The rest may have a preference for their own dialect (some more than others) but in their Lesbian veneer and mixture of Doric and Ionic forms are to some extent dialectally indistinguishable. All of the ancient authors use a literary language that is artificial from the point of view of any individual dialect. Homer has the most forms that occur in no actual dialect. In this volume, by means of dialectally and chronologically arranged illustrative texts, translated and provided with running commentary, some of the early Greek authors are compared against epigraphic records, where available, from the same period and locality in order to provide an appreciation of: the internal history of the Ancient Greek language and its dialects; the evolution of the multilectal, artificial poetic language that characterizes the main genres of the most ancient Greek literature, especially Homer / epic, with notes on choral lyric and even the literary language of the prose historian Herodotus; the formulaic properties of ancient poetry, especially epic genres; the development of more complex meters, colometric structure, and poetic conventions; and the basis for decisions about text editing and the selection of a manuscript alternant or emendation that was plausibly used by a given author.

Contents:

Front matter

Preface

Contents

Dating and Other Conventions

Greek Authors and Their Abbreviations

Bibliographical Abbreviations

General Abbreviations

1. Indo-European Background

2. Anatolian

3. Pre-Greek

4. Greece, Greek, and Its Dialects

5. Phonological Systems of Greek through Time

6. Evolution of the Greek Vowel System

7. Chronology of Changes in Attic and Ionic

8. Poetic Heritage

9. Homer and Early Epic

10. Argives, Danaans, and Achaeans

11. The Language of Achilles

12. Homer as Artist: Language and Textual Iconicity

13. Attic and West Ionic

14. Central Ionic

15. East Ionic

16. Northern Doric

17. Laconian-Messenian

18. Insular Doric

19. Boeotian and Thessalian

20. Lesbian

21. Arcadian, Cyprian, and Mycenaean Phonological and Morphological Sketch

22. Arcadian, Cyprian, Pamphylian

23. Mycenaean

24. Dialect Mixture in the Epic Tradition

25. Alleged Phases in Epic Development

26. Special Phonetic Symbols

References

Index of Cited Passages

Greek Index

Subject Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781614512950

1614512957

OCLC:

979634692