Les nouveaux visages de la muse au IVe siècle av. J.-C. = The Many-Headed Muse : tradition And Innovation in Fourth-Century B.C. Greek Lyric Poetry, The Many-Headed Muse : tradition And Innovation in Fourth-Century B.C. Greek Lyric Poetry

UNIVERSITÉ PARIS IV - SORBONNE
ÉCOLE DOCTORALE MONDES ANCIENS ET MEDIEVAUX


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(N° d!enregistrement attribué par la bibliothèque)







T H È S E
pour obtenir le grade de


DOCTEUR DE L'UNIVERSITÉ PARIS IV
Discipline : Lettres Classiques

présentée et soutenue publiquement par




Pauline Anaïs LeVen

le 25 novembre 2008


LES NOUVEAUX VISAGES DE LA MUSE
AU IVe SIÈCLE AV. J.-C.


(THE MANY-HEADED MUSE: TRADITION AND INNOVATION
IN FOURTH-CENTURY B.C. GREEK LYRIC POETRY)






Co-directeurs de thèse: Monique Trédé et Andrew Ford



Jury:
M. Claude Calame
M. Eric Csapo
M. Paul Demont
M. Dider Pralon
i
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of contents iii
Acknowledgments v
Introduction 1

Chapter 1 A collection of Unrecollected Authors? 13

1. The corpus 14
2. The methods 35

Chapter 2 New Music and its Myths 43

1. Revisiting newness 43
2. New Music from the top 63

Chapter 3 Poet and Society: the “lives” of fourth-century poets 91

1. Mousikê and middlenesss 94
2. Opsophagia and philo-xenia 103
3. Poetry and parrhêsia 115

Chapter 4 Poetics of Late-Classical Lyric 137

1. Stylistic innovations 139
2. Thematic features 164
3. A case-study: Philoxenus’ Cyclops or Galatea 190

Chapter 5 Sympotica: Genre, Deixis and Performance 203

1. Changing sympotic practices 204
2. Nouvelle cuisine and New Dithyramb 213
3. Deixis and performance context in Ariphron’s paean 231
4. Aristotle’s hymn to Hermias 239

Chapter 6 A canon set in stone? 250

1. The new classic: Aristonous 258
th 2. Old song for a new god: Asclepius in 4 -cent. paeans 264
3. New song for an old god: Philodamus’ paean to 284
Dionysus

Conclusion 295
Bibliography 301
iii
iv Acknowledgments
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


After seven years spent between Princeton and Paris, I am following Solon’s
wisdom and moving on to a new stage, knowing how much I owe to the people with
whom I spent my graduate career, and how much they contributed to making my work,
and myself, into what they are now.
My first thanks go to my two advisers, Andrew Ford at Princeton, and Monique
Trédé at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. I owe most of the Greek I know to Professor
Trédé, who has been my mentor for ten years. Providing me with generous advice and
faithful support, she made it possible for me to come to the US for a first visit in 1998
and gave me her blessing (and numerous signatures) to return to the East Coast and
work on a thèse de cotutelle. Her energy, sense of humour and elegance, as well as her
love and knowledge of Greek and French literature make her, as a woman, a teacher
and a scholar, a model for me to emulate.
Professor Ford supervised most of my studies on the other side of the Atlantic;
our dialogue started with a reading of Plato’s Protagoras in the fall of 2001, and ended,
in a nice ring-composition effect, with a parallel study of Aristotle’s Hymn to Virtue in
the spring of 2008. His reading of ancient and modern texts has been a constant source
of inspiration for me, and words can barely express my gratitude for his attentive
tutelage over the years, which has combined patient feedback (including on dozens of
compulsive, never finished drafts) with warm encouragements to find my own voice as
a scholar.
Secondly, I would like to thank my dissertation committee, Josh Katz and
Josiah Ober. I am very fortunate to have benefited from their complementary feedback:
v Acknowledgments
Josh Katz was at my side for the whole thesis process, listening to my developing
thoughts, providing bibliographical insights, and asking the questions that helped me
move ahead. Josh Ober offered me invaluable help in thinking about the larger issues
brought up by my topic, and I am indebted to him for much of the backbone of my
dissertation. He made himself (and his research) available even when living on the
opposite coast, and often articulated my arguments in a more clear-minded, elegant and
convincing form than I ever could have done myself.
I am also indebted to two scholars whose work and presence in our department
greatly influenced my ways of reading texts and writing about them: Leslie Kurke, who
sparked my curiosity for “the New Dithyramb” and opened avenues of thought in her
2004 Wisdom Literature seminar; and Froma Zeitlin, who, with her wonderful classes
and generous help all throughout the years, including for a special topic on Daphnis
and Chloe, has been an endless source of intellectual stimulation and delightful
conversations (ranging from Helen to peacocks, and from jewelry to vegetarians).
The Princeton Classics Department and the Departement d’Etudes Anciennes
have provided most of the highlights of my social and academic life in the past years. I
would need a thousand tongues to acknowledge all the guises in which individual
members of the faculty helped me: Yelena Baraz, Denis Feeney, Andrew Feldherr,
Mikael Flower, Constanze Güthenke, Marc-Domingo Gygax, Bob Kaster, Nino
Luraghi, Brent Shaw, Christian Wildberg all contributed in some way to the present,
many-headed, shape of this project, helping me develop my thoughts, look into new
directions - and keep to an acceptable timetable.
vi Acknowledgments
My graduate colleagues, both in Paris and Princeton, have been wonderful and
forgiving friends and allies: the “classicists of tomorrow” educated me in more ways
than I can acknowledge here. Special thanks go to their feedback on a chapter
presented at the Dissertation Colloquium, and to Anna, for reading my dissertation and
helping me look further.
A good part of the logistics of graduate school would not have been possible
without the help and dedication of Stephanie Lewandowski, the department’s
administrator; without the great contribution of Leslie B. Forrest, who donated me
seven boxes of classical books; from the Casa Shermana’s gîte, couvert et questions
classiques in 2006-2008; from the Princeton Classics Department’s funding over the
years; and from the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s financial support for 2007-2008, that
allowed me to devote myself to research and writing; I am very grateful to have been
chosen as the Sibley fellow in Greek studies this past year and wish to thank them
again for this honour.
Finally, I would like to thank my friends for the conversations, the coffees, the
music, the trips, the barbecues, the love and all the fun on both sides of the Atlantic; my
father for his kooky wisdom, my mother for her endless love and patience (and article
clippings), and Thomas for his inexhaustible energy, support, and inspiring
companionship. To him I dedicate this work.
vii

viii Introduction
INTRODUCTION



…because he found nothing so depressing
as the collected works of unrecollected
authors, although he did not mind an
occasional visitor’s admiring the place’s
tall bookcases and short cabinets…

V. Nabokov, Ada


The topic of this thesis is the melic poetry (solo or choral songs accompanied by
1string- or wind-instrumental music, exclusive of the songs of drama) composed and
performed in Greece in the century starting with a “New Music” revolution first
documented by Aristophanes in the Clouds of 423 BC and ending with the close of the
2classical period in 323 BC.
As archaeological, epigraphic and literary evidence suggests, lyric poetry did
not cease to be composed and performed between the death of the last great lyric poet
of the classical period, Pindar, and the much-admired lyric corpora of Theocritus and
Callimachus in the third century BC. However, from its original reception by the comic

1 On the definition of lyric, see the opening paragraphs of M. L. West 1993, vi: “‘Greek lyric poetry’ is a
conventional catch-all term covering more or less all the Greek poetry of the centuries down to 350 BC
apart from epic, didactic and other verse composed in hexameters, and drama. It cannot be considered a
single genre. It is commonly subdivided into melic poetry, elegy, and iambus. But this division is not
without its problems.” Seminal studies on the classification and definition of the lyric genre and
subgenres include A. E. Harvey 1956 and M. Davies 1988. See also I. Rutherford 1995; C. Calame 1998;
E. Cingano 2003.
2 All dates are BC, unless otherwise specified. The period under consideration roughly corresponds with
the period beginning with the Peloponnesian War and the end of Pericles’ Athens, and ending with