Description
Book SynopsisThis study is an interpretation of the choices the tragedians made in regard to certain forms of standardized variations in word order and prosody. Those choices were made in response to the competing demands of metrical constrain and the poets' sense of what was stylistically appropriate for tragic trimeters.
Trade Review...this is a sound, detailed study, useful for scholars of metrics, tragedy, and comedy... -- Anne Mahoney, Tufts University * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
Baechle gives us a broad, rigorously conducted, and theoretically sophisticated exploration of the iambic trimeter in Greek tragedy. But his achievement extends far beyond this technical tour de force. From his analysis of compositional factors, including hyperbaton, prosodic variation, and intractable word shapes, there emerges a major contribution to our understanding of dramatic style and metrical constraints, the aesthetic differences between dialogue and lyric, variations in the rhythmic qualities of the three tragedians, and of the way Old Comedy played against the trimeter of serious drama. -- Victor Bers, Classics Department, Yale University
Table of ContentsPart 1 Treatment of Word Shapes in Composition and the Use of Prosodic Variation Chapter 2 Definition of Word Shapes Chapter 3 Metrical Lengthening of Short Final Vowels Chapter 4 Correptio Attica vs Metrical Lengthening Chapter 5 Synizesis Chapter 6 Elision and Lengthening of Words Shaped Part 7 The Use of Hyperbation in Composition and its Interpretation Chapter 8 Marked Forms of Word Order for Prepositional Phrases Chapter 9 Metrical and Prosodic Variations at Mid-Line Chapter 10 Hyperbata of the Form Modifier—Verb—Noun or the Reverse Chapter 11 Distribution of Word Shapes
