Startseite Penthemimeral Elision in Tragic Trimeters
Artikel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

Penthemimeral Elision in Tragic Trimeters

  • James T. Clark EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 1. Dezember 2021
Veröffentlichen auch Sie bei De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

This paper provides a statistical survey of the incidence of elision at the penthemimeral caesura in the iambic trimeters of Greek tragedy. It updates and builds on the work of Descroix (1931) by considering the rates of elision of different types of words: lexicals, nonlexical polysyllables, and nonlexical monosyllables. While all tragedians elide less at the caesura than throughout the line, in Aeschylus the rate of this reduction is far greater for lexicals and polysyllabic nonlexicals than it is for monosyllabic nonlexicals. On this evidence, and the evidence of interlinear elision, it is tentatively suggested that lexicals and nonlexical polysyllables should together be considered as the more constrained elisions. When the rates of constrained elision are examined, the difference between Aeschylus and later Euripides is revealed to be twice that obtained when bulk figures are used. This difference is attributed to a combination of Euripides’ adoption of more fluent phrasing towards the end of his career and the tragedians’ different approaches to compositional constraints.

Bibliography

Aeschyli Septem quae supersunt tragoediae, ed. D. L. Page, Oxford 1972.Suche in Google Scholar

Aeschylus, ed. and transl. by H. W. Smyth, Cambridge, MA 1922–1926.Suche in Google Scholar

Eschyle, Les Suppliantes, Les Perses, Les Sept contre Thèbes, Prométhée enchaîné, ed. P. Mazon, Paris 1920.Suche in Google Scholar

Euripidis Fabulae, ed. G. Murray, Oxford 1902–1909.Suche in Google Scholar

Euripidis Fabulae, ed. J. Diggle, Oxford 1981–1994.Suche in Google Scholar

Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati, ed. M. L. West, Oxford 1989–1992.Suche in Google Scholar

Sophocles, The Plays and Fragments, ed. and transl. by R. C. Jebb, Cambridge 1892–1900.Suche in Google Scholar

Sophoclis Fabulae, ed. H. Lloyd-Jones/N. G. Wilson, Revised impression, Oxford 1992.Suche in Google Scholar

Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, vol. I, ed. B. Snell, editio correctior by R. Kannicht, Göttingen 1986.Suche in Google Scholar

N. Baechle, Metrical Constraint and the Interpretation of Style in the Tragic Trimeter, Lanham, MD 2007.Suche in Google Scholar

D. J. Butterfield, “The Tragic Trimeter”, CR 58, 2008, 350–352.10.1111/j.1939-3881.2008.00030.xSuche in Google Scholar

M. Cropp/G. Fick, Resolutions and Chronology in Euripides: The Fragmentary Tragedies, Oxford 1985.Suche in Google Scholar

J. Descroix, Le trimètre iambique des iambographers a la comédie nouvelle, Macon 1931.Suche in Google Scholar

A. M. Devine/L. D. Stephens, “The Greek Appositives. Toward a Linguistically Adequate Definition of Caesura and Bridge”, CP 73, 1978, 314–328.10.1086/366451Suche in Google Scholar

A. M. Devine/L. D. Stephens, “Rules for Resolution. The Zielinskian Canon”, TAPA 110, 1980, 63–79.10.2307/284211Suche in Google Scholar

A. M. Devine/L. D. Stephens, “A New Aspect of the Evolution of the Trimeter in Euripides”, TAPA 111, 1981, 43–64.10.2307/284118Suche in Google Scholar

A. M. Devine/L. D. Stephens, “Towards a New Theory of Greek Prosody. The Suprasylabic Rules”, GRBS 22, 1982, 305–321.Suche in Google Scholar

A. M. Devine/L. D. Stephens, “Semantics, Syntax, and Phonological Organization in Greek”, CP 78, 1983, 1–25.10.1086/366742Suche in Google Scholar

A. M. Devine/L. D. Stephens, Language and Metre. Resolution, Porson’s Bridge, and Their Prosodic Basis, Chico, CA 1984.Suche in Google Scholar

A. M. Devine/L. D. Stephens, The Prosody of Greek Speech, Oxford 1994.10.1093/oso/9780195085464.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

J. G. De Gooijer/N. M. Laan, “Change-Point Analysis. Elision in Euripides’ Orestes”, Computers and the Humanities 35, 2001, 167–191.10.1023/A:1002485208039Suche in Google Scholar

M. Fantuzzi, The Rhesus Attributed to Euripides, Cambridge 2020.10.1017/9781139199032Suche in Google Scholar

M. Griffith, The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound, Cambridge 1977.Suche in Google Scholar

B. Hedin, The Phonological and Syntactic Conditioning of Elision in Greek, PhD diss. Stanford 2000.Suche in Google Scholar

I. Hilberg, Das Prinzip der Silbenwägung und die daraus entspringenden Gesetze der Endsilben in der griechischen Poesie. Wien, 1879.Suche in Google Scholar

H. D. F. Kitto, “Sophocles, Statistics, and the Trachinae”, AJP 60, 1939, 178–193.10.2307/291198Suche in Google Scholar

N. M. Laan, “Stylometry and Method. The Case of Euripides”, Literary and Linguistic Computing 10, 1995, 271–278.10.1093/llc/10.4.271Suche in Google Scholar

V. Liapis, A Commentary on the Rhesus Attributed to Euripides, Oxford 2012.Suche in Google Scholar

P. Maas, Greek Metre, transl. by H. Lloyd-Jones, Oxford 1962.Suche in Google Scholar

N. Manousakis, Prometheus Bound. A Separate Authorial Trace in the Aeschylean Corpus, Berlin 2020.10.1515/9783110687675Suche in Google Scholar

M. D. Olcott, Metrical Variations in the Iambic Trimeter as a Function of Dramatic Technique in Sophocles’ Philoctetes and Ajax, PhD diss. Stanford 1974.Suche in Google Scholar

W. Ritchie, The Authenticity of the Rhesus of Euripides, Oxford 1964.Suche in Google Scholar

M. Van Raalte, Rhythm and Metre. Towards a Systematic Description of Greek Stichic Verse, Assen 1986.Suche in Google Scholar

A. Vatri/B. McGillivray. “The Diorisis Ancient Greek Corpus”, Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 3, 2018, 55–65.10.1163/24523666-01000013Suche in Google Scholar

M. L. West, Greek Metre, Oxford 1982 a.Suche in Google Scholar

M. L. West, “Three Topics in Greek Metre”, CQ 32, 1982 b, 281–297.10.1017/S0009838800026458Suche in Google Scholar

T. Zielinski, Tragodoumenon Libri Tres, Krakow 1925.Suche in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2021-12-01
Published in Print: 2021-11-04

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Heruntergeladen am 26.10.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/phil-2021-0104/html
Button zum nach oben scrollen