Speech, Writing, Poetry (Volume A)
Writing Forms
Mesopotamia: Enmerkar
• Sumer, Uruk• Inana (Ishtar)• clay tablets/ invention
of writing• “The lord of Arrata
inspected the tablet. The spoken words were mere wedges—his brow darkened” (p. 1123).
Egypt
• Tale of the Eloquent Peasant
• use of rhetorical devices
• scribal writings• Thoth
• Xenophanes, anthropomorphosis
• Theognis, hedonism
• Aristophanes, a contest of playwrights in dramatic form
• Plato, Socratic dialogue on writing/ rhetoric
• Aristotle, theories of tragedy
• Callimachus, on a poem’s length
• Horace, on poetry composition
Greeks
• Aeschylus or Euripides?
• Dionysus
• contest of the writers
• Euripides: “The most boring primitives is what he likes to create.”
• Aeschylus: “You connoisseur of dirty Cretan songs fouling our art with incestuous intercourse.”
Aristophanes: Frogs
• Lysias, plain style• Theuth (Thoth, Egyptian god of writing)• writing / painting• persuasion versus truth in speeches• discourse versus writing• dialectic• rules for discourse
1. know the truth of and define a thing in itself2. appropriate speech for audience
Plato: Phaedrus
• tragedy and imitation• style: embellished, different parts• catharsis• 6 elements: plot, character, language,
thought, spectacle, and melody• plot: recognition, catharsis, reversal• unhappy endings• probability and inevitability• deus ex machina• Chorus
Aristotle: Poetics
Callimachus
• Library of Alexandria • “Make your sacrifice
as fat as you can, but keep your Muse on slender rations.”
• “avoid the ruts carved in the boulevard”
Horace: Odes
• odes• lyrical form• “I was able to be the
first to bring Aeolian song to Italian measures.”
• laurel of Delphi
• realism versus fantasy
• unified whole
• brevity and smoothness versus ornament and embellished language
• mimesis versus authenticity
• choosing subject matter
• word choice
• appropriate structure
Horace: Ars Poetica
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The Norton Anthology
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