Stesichoros

Stesichoros ( Greek  Στησίχορος Stēsíchoros , also Tisia ; * around 632–629 BC probably in Himera in Sicily; † around 556–553 BC in Catania ) was the most important representative of the older Doric poetry and belongs to the canon of nine Lyric poet . He was also called the "lyric homer ".

The division of the choral songs into verse , antistrophe and epode comes from him; he is also considered the founder of the higher, fresh style. His celebratory chants, divided into 26 books by the Alexandrians , dealt with predominantly epic material in a splendid presentation ; the simple metrical forms were similar to the epic forms , as was the dialect, which was mixed with a few Dorisms. We only have fragments of him.

The supposed blindness of Stesichoros (as a result of his insulting Helena) and miraculous healing (after his revocation) is viewed by today's research as a symbol and not as an actual loss of sight.

Fragments from the following of his poems have survived:

• Iliupersis (The Wooden Horse)
• Helena (The Insult of Helena)
• Palinody (The Revocation)

Stesichoros was also of great importance for the development of the tragedy . It was, so to speak, a link between epic and tragedy. This is shown particularly clearly by his Oresty in two books, which Euripides in particular served as a model. A papyrus discovered in the 1970s and kept in Lille contains an important fragment from Stesichoros' work on the myth of the seven against Thebes. It contains dramatic dialogues between Oedipus ' mother Iokaste and the two sons Eteocles and Polynices . These are types of construction that directly prelude to the Attic tragedy.

The underestimation of the stesichor in modern research has probably to do with the fact that it does not play a role in Aristotle 's description of the development of tragedy in his poetics . Aristotle's story and analysis of this tragedy became canonical for the West; in research from the 1970s onwards, however, this poet increasingly came into its own.

Its outstanding importance in antiquity is reflected by the fact that it was included in the Canon of the Nine Lyric Poets in Alexandria. He was not at the top there - Pindar was at the top - but he was prominent in this canon. The Romans in the Augustan period also valued this poet.

Stesichoros' descent from Himera in Sicily also shows how fertile and vital the Greek culture of Magna Graecia was as early as the 7th century BC. Has been; and it shows how strong at times also in the 6th century BC BC this culture had an effect on the motherland.

expenditure

• Malcolm Davies (Ed.): Poetarum Melicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Volume 1: Alcman, Stesichorus, Ibycus . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1991, ISBN 978-0-19-814046-7 .
• Denys Lionel Page : Poetae Melici Graeci. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1975.
• Jan Maarten Bremer , Anna Maria van Erp Taalman Kip , Simon R. Slings : Some Recently Found Greek Poems: Text and Commentary. Brill, Leiden 1987 ( Mnemosyne. Supplementum , Vol. 99), ISBN 9-004-08319-7 . Google Books: [1] . ( Archilochus , Alkaios , anonymous commentary on Hipponax , Stesichoros)

literature

• Andreas Bagordo : Stesichoros . In: Bernhard Zimmermann (Hrsg.): Handbook of Greek literature in antiquity. Volume 1: The literature of the archaic and classical times. CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-57673-7 , pp. 188-196.
• Christian Mueller-Goldingen : Tradition and Innovation. On Stesichoros' handling of the myth. In: Antiquité Classique 69, 2000, pp. 1–19 (with information on older literature).

Web links

• Literature by and about Stesichoros in the catalog of the German National Library
• Tradition of a Greek heroic legend at Stesichoros Harvard college library

Remarks

1. ↑ These statements from Suda are, however, doubted in specialist science; see Emmet Robins : Stesichoros. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Metzler, Stuttgart 1996-2015, ISBN 3-476-01470-3 . and Walther Kraus : Stesichoros. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 5, Stuttgart 1975, Col. 367.