Greek Poetry in the Age of Ephemerality

Greek poetry invented ephemerality as a mark of the human condition and introduced materials for confronting it. This book examines ancient Greek poetry, including Homer, Archilochus, Sappho, Simonides, Aeschylus, Pindar and Timotheus, to show how this poetry offered the embodiment of its rhythms as an answer to change and loss.

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This book suggests that poetry offers a way to remain in the world – not only by declarations of intent or the promotion of remembrance, but also through the durable physicality of its practice. Whether carved in stone or wood, printed onto a page, beat out by a mimetic or rhythmic body, or humming in the mind, poems are meant to engrave and adhere. Ancient Greek poetry exhibits a particularly acute awareness of change, decay, and the ephemerality inherent in mortality. Yet it couples its presentation of this awareness with an offering of meaningful embodiment in shifting forms that are aligned with, yet subtly manipulative of, mortal time. Sarah Nooter's argument ranges widely across authors and genres, from Homer and the Homeric Hymns through Sappho and Archilochus to Pindar and Aeschylus. The book will be compelling reading for all those interested in Greek literature and in poetry more broadly.