[B-Greek] Modern Greek pronunciation for poetry
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Mon Sep 19 10:35:45 EDT 2005
As Randall has very nicely elucidated, the chief question is NOT
which pronunciation of ancient Greek one uses but whether or not one
reads the hexameter rhythm of the original meter. I have always read
Homer in the same rhythmic manner that I read Vergil, inasmuch as
they both wrote dactylic hexameters. I know very well that my
pronunciation (more-or-less Erasmian) doesn't correspond to the
pronunciation of the Homeric rhapsodes who performed at the
Panathenaia in Athens or the other great PANHGUREIS in the ancient
world, but how one pronounces the vowels and diphthongs is probably
NOT the crucial matter for HEARING the rhythm of the verse. I think
Randall has laid out the problem quite accurately. It would be nice
to know how Vergil read Homer and how he performed his own
compositions. I've never had the problem Randall speaks of -- losing
the sense of the words because of the effort to sustain the hexameter
rhythm, because I find the hexameter rhythm sustains itself more or
less mechanically.
On Sep 19, 2005, at 10:22 AM, TuNeCedeMalis67 at aol.com wrote:
> Erasmian doesn't work with ancient Greek poetry either, right? The
> ancients
> didn't use the stress accent we now use?
>
> Kat Doe
> homemaker
>
> In a message dated 9/19/2005 6:28:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> jeremy_brightbill at sall.com writes:
>
> There have been discussions recently about the benefits of Modern
> Greek
> pronunciation for the NT. But I am wondering how it would work
> for poetry,
> since the meter is based on syllable length rather than word
> accent. How do
> modern Greeks pronounce Homeric poetry or Attic drama? I imagine
> that they
> don't try to reintroduce the contrast in vowel length. Do they
> shift the
> stress around to fit the meter? Or do they simply ignore the
> meter and
> pronounce the accents as stress, as they are in the modern
> language? I
> would be grateful if someone could describe the system that Greeks
> use
> today, along with its practical advantages and disadvantages.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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