Böcker av Anne Pippin Burnett

This study of early Greek lyric provides portraits of Archilochus, Alcaeus and Sappho and their poetry. It looks at their social setting, and their purposes within it.

Burnett shows us the art of Bacchylides in the context of Greek lyric traditions. She discusses the beginnings of choral poetry and the functions of the choral myth; she describes the purposes of the victory song in particular and the practices of Bacchylides and Pindar as they fulfilled their victory commissions.

After considering how our view of Elizabethan drama has obscured an accurate view of the ancient tragedies, this text reviews early Greek notions of vengeance as expressed in the "Odyssey", Heracles' tales, Pindar's odes, Attic judicial processes, and the legend of Harmodius and Aristogeiton.

Pindar's odes contain invocations and prayers, but their most characteristic effects are achieved thhrough the depiction of fragments of myth. This work argues that these passages served as a dramatic mechanism by which dancers brought an experience of another world to guests gathered in the banqueting suite of the victor.