Closing thoughts on Archilochus

Some closing thoughts on Archilochus:

  • Tough to generalize about Archilochus. He's an unusually broad and diverse author, I think, even given the paucity of surviving fragments. We have bits that feel just like Homer (17a, the Telephus elegy), but also explicitly erotic material (42, 43, Cologne epode), animal stories (~ Aesop), and consolatory epigram (~ Theognis, maybe? or a bit like hDem 217?). Practically the entire range of archaic poetry in a single author.
  • Despite that diversity of material, he is more coherent in his language: even at his most explicit he still feels a bit like Homer: e.g. 42 (working it bent over like a Thracian sucking a straw) has a simile and uses Epic-Ionic Θρειξ instead of Attic Θρᾳξ.
  • Some common threads do emerge: very concerned with what citizens think (polis ideology? 13.1-2, 172.3-4, 196a.33-5), and a kind of oppositional stance -- the persona often takes the position that the addressee has wronged him, or that others will object to what he is saying (5, 13, 17a, 114, 172). I think the old school critics maybe would have called this the emergence of the first person.

ps. I think ερατα δωρα is actually not exceptional, but I'm not finding now the compound form of ερατα that I think is more common

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