General information
No field of Greek literature comes as close to the problems outlined above as Choral Lyric. Closely linked to social, political, and religious life, it obtained its existence, form, and performance from the different needs of various communities, which formed a mainly oral culture. Fundamental studies by (among others) B. Gentili, C. Calame, W. Rösler described both the public and more private relations between that poetry and its context.
Bibliography
Gentili, B.: Poetry and its Poetry in Ancient Greece, London 1990;
Calame, C.: Les choeurs de jeunes filles en Grece archaique, Rome 1977;
Rösler, W.: Dichter und Gruppe, Munich 1980
Special information
Further research should be based on all forms of choral lyric and take a double perspective:
How were the creation and reception of choral poetry influenced by its context and, vice versa, in
which way did poetry itself shape the reality of choral communities?
Two examples:
1. The Paean Erythraeus surviving in four significantly different forms:
(a) As part of a religious inscription [Erythraei 380/60 B.C.E.], that contains a sacral law
concerning the ritual singing of Paeans and two fragmentary Paeans. [ed. PMG 934 Page]
(b) As an inscription [Ptolemais/Egypt 97 C.E.] [ed. Bernard, Inscriptions métriques de l'
Egypte greco-romaine (1969), no. 176
(c) As an inscription [ Athens 100 C.E.] [IG2 4509]
(d) As an inscription [Dion/Macedonia 100/200 C.E.] [ed. G. P. Oikonomos, epigrafai tes
Makedonias I (1915) 8ff]
2. Philodamos' Paean [Delphi 4th. c. B.C.E.] was performed during the Theoxenia of Delphi and alludes to the oracle by which it was caused; though sung during a ceremony held for Dionysos (see inscription) it is not composed as a Dithyrambos , but as a Paean; therefore it seems to be an intrinsic transformation of two well established genres. [SIG3 No. 270] See the discussion in L. Käppel, Paian, lib. cit., p. 208ff.
As to the poetry of Pindar see (as a possible starting point) a valuable list containing the particular occasions on which the odes were performed (Evelyn Krummen, Pyrsos Hymnon, lib. cit., p. 275f)
Bibliography
L. Käppel, Paian, Berlin and New York 1992
E. Krummen, Pyrsos Hymnon, Berlin and New York 1990
(FB)
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