Anacreon

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Marble statue of Anacreon from Monte Calvo, Italy, 2nd century

Anakreon (Greek Ἀνακρέων Anakréōn ; * around 575/570 BC in Teos in Ionia , today Sıgacık in Turkey; † 495 BC in Athens ) was a Greek poet who is counted in the canon of nine poets .

Life

Anacreon was born in the Ionian city of Teos, whose inhabitants around 540 BC. Before the threatened Persian rule in the Thracian Abdera . Anakreon also emigrated there when the Persians subjugated his homeland.

His unsteady life eventually led him to the court of the tyrant of Samos , Polycrates . Here he was highly honored and spent most of his life as a respected poet at court. After the death of Polykrates in 522 BC BC he went to several other royal courts such as the tyrant Hipparchus in Athens, who called him to him.

Nothing is known for sure about Anakreon's life after the fall of the Peisistratids . The Athenian general Xanthippos , victor in the sea battle at Mykale , is said to have been his friend.

According to legend, he died at the age of 85 after choking on a grape.

Works

Love, wine and cheerful conviviality were the main themes of his songs, written in the soft Ionic dialect, known for their beauty and grace. As a lyric poet, he sang of love, wine and roses in graceful, light verses that were imitated by many (see Anacreontics ). Anakreon described the erotic feelings as an expression of the soul .

Only three of his poems are complete and some in fragments.

iconography

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen houses an ancient statue of Anakreon ( found in Monte Calvo in 1835 and acquired from the Borghese collection in 1891 ).

reception

On the Acropolis in Athens , his statue stood next to a statue of his friend Xanthippus, which portrayed him as an aged singer blessed with wine, just as the Greeks considered him to be a type of poet who still worshiped wine and love in old age.

Anacreon's poetry enjoyed great popularity after its rediscovery in the 18th century, and so Lorenzo da Ponte designed the text of Leporello's register aria in Don Giovanni based on Anakreon's poem 32 Auf seine Mädchen , an allusion that the opera audience of the time was naturally aware of.

Theodor Bergk , Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim , Eduard Mörike , Karl Wilhelm Ramler , Johann Peter Uz and others translated poems by Anacreon. With imitations of this type of lyric poetry from different, sometimes later times and of different values, Bergk, Friedrich Mehldorn and Valentin Rose paved the way for anacreontics.

The melody of the national anthem of the USA comes from a popular English drinking song around 1800 by John Stafford Smith ( To Anacreon in Heaven ), which was once based on the national anthem of Luxembourg and the club song of the Anacreontic Society in London , which existed from 1772 to 1792 .

In 1990 the asteroid (2339) Anacreon was named after him.

Editions and translations

  • Giovanna A. Braghetti: Anacreon. Edition and commentary. Dissertation, University of Freiburg 1994.
  • Eduard Mörike : I like to stir the lyre while drinking. Songs of Wine and Love by the early Greek poet Anakreon. Offizin der golden jug, Weilrod 2004.
  • Karl Wilhelm Ramler : Eighteen songs from the Anacreon. Klotz, Eschborn 1992.
  • Martin L. West (Ed.): Carmina Anacreontea. 2nd, revised edition, Teubner, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-8154-1025-8

literature

Overview representations

Introductions

iconography

reception

Web links

Wikisource: Anakreon  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Anacreon  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Lukian , Makrobioi 26
  2. ↑ Valerius Maximus , Facta et dicta memorabilia 9, 12 ext. 8th
  3. ↑ The so-called "Anacreon". ( Memento of February 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Skulpturhalle Basel, June 2009
  4. ^ Pausanias 1:25 , 1
  5. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 16590
personal data
SURNAME Anacreon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Anacreon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Singer
DATE OF BIRTH around 550 BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH Teos
DATE OF DEATH 495 BC Chr.
Place of death Athens