The Dance of the Muses Choral Theory and Ancient Greek Poetics [Hardcover]

This book develops an authentic and at the same time revolutionary musical analysis of ancient Greek poetry. It departs from the abstract metrical analyses of the past in that it conceives the rhythmic and harmonic elements of poetry as integral to the whole expression, and decisive in the interpretation of its meaning. David offers a thoroughgoing treatment of Homeric poetics: here some remarkable discoveries in the harmonic movement of epic verse, when combined with some neglected facts about the origin of the hexameter in a dance of the Muses, lead to essential new thinking about the genesis and the form of Homeric poetry. He also gives a foretaste of the fruits to be harvested in lyric by a musical analysis, which applies a new theory of the Greek tonic accent and considers concretely the role of dance in performance.

1. Introduction: the right comparison
2. Choreia and the musical text
3. The voice of the dancer: a new theory of the Greek accent
4. The form of the hexameter: the origins of caesura and diaeresis
5. The `choral signifier': the shaping of Homeric speech
6. Retrogression, episode, and anagogy: the round dance and narrative form
7. The genesis of Homeric poetry (a brief synthesis): the `intemporizing' cataloguer
8. The lyric orchestra

A. P. David is Assistant Professor, European College of Liberal Arts, Berlin.