Speech, Writing, Poetry (Volume A)

Writing Forms

Mesopotamia: Enmerkar

• Sumer, Uruk• Inana (Ishtar)• clay tablets/ invention

of writing• “The lord of Arrata

inspected the tablet. The spoken words were mere wedges—his brow darkened” (p. 1123).

Egypt

• Tale of the Eloquent Peasant

• use of rhetorical devices

• scribal writings• Thoth

• Xenophanes, anthropomorphosis

• Theognis, hedonism

• Aristophanes, a contest of playwrights in dramatic form

• Plato, Socratic dialogue on writing/ rhetoric

• Aristotle, theories of tragedy

• Callimachus, on a poem’s length

• Horace, on poetry composition

Greeks

• Aeschylus or Euripides?

• Dionysus

• contest of the writers

• Euripides: “The most boring primitives is what he likes to create.”

• Aeschylus: “You connoisseur of dirty Cretan songs fouling our art with incestuous intercourse.”

Aristophanes: Frogs

• Lysias, plain style• Theuth (Thoth, Egyptian god of writing)• writing / painting• persuasion versus truth in speeches• discourse versus writing• dialectic• rules for discourse

1. know the truth of and define a thing in itself2. appropriate speech for audience

Plato: Phaedrus

• tragedy and imitation• style: embellished, different parts• catharsis• 6 elements: plot, character, language,

thought, spectacle, and melody• plot: recognition, catharsis, reversal• unhappy endings• probability and inevitability• deus ex machina• Chorus

Aristotle: Poetics

Callimachus

• Library of Alexandria • “Make your sacrifice

as fat as you can, but keep your Muse on slender rations.”

• “avoid the ruts carved in the boulevard”

Horace: Odes

• odes• lyrical form• “I was able to be the

first to bring Aeolian song to Italian measures.”

• laurel of Delphi

• realism versus fantasy

• unified whole

• brevity and smoothness versus ornament and embellished language

• mimesis versus authenticity

• choosing subject matter

• word choice

• appropriate structure

Horace: Ars Poetica

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The Norton Anthology

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