Anacreon biography of michael
Anacreon
6th century BC Greek lyric poet
This article is about the Greek poet. For other uses, see Anacreon (disambiguation).
Anacreon | |
---|---|
A bust of Anacreon in the Louvre | |
Born | c. BC Teos, Ionia (modern Turkey) |
Died | c.
BC (aged c. 78) |
Occupation | Lyric poet |
Knownfor | Drinking songs, erotic poems, being one of the Nine Lyric Poets |
Parent(s) | Possible names: Eumelus, Aristocritus, Parthenius, Scythinus |
Anacreon (; Ancient Greek: Ἀνακρέων ὁ Τήϊος; c.– c. BC) was a Greeklyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems.
Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ancient Ionicdialect. Like all early lyric poetry, it was composed to be sung or recited to the accompaniment of music, usually the lyre. Anacreon's poetry touched on universal themes of love, infatuation, disappointment, revelry, parties, festivals, and the observations of everyday people and life.
Life
Anacreon lived in the sixth century BC. It is likely he was born in the s BC: Hans Bernsdorff says c. , David Campbell says c. The Suda reports four possible names for his father: Eumelus, Aristocritus, Parthenius, and Scythinus. Ancient sources agree that Anacreon came from Teos, on the coast of Ionia (modern Turkey); this tradition is attested as early as Herodotus, and at least one of Anacreon's fragments mentions the city.
When Teos was conquered by Persia in the s BC, the Teians moved to Abdera, Thrace; Anacreon was probably already an adult.
Anacreon spent time in Samos. According to Himerius, he was invited there to educate Polycrates, the future tyrant of Samos, who Strabo reports was one of the main subjects of his poetry. If Himerius is correct and Anacreon arrived on Samos before Polycrates became tyrant, this would have been before BC.
From Samos, Anacreon moved to Athens on the invitation of Hipparchus, presumably sometime after Hipparchus came to power in /7; according to Herodotus he was still on Samos in when Polycrates was murdered.
Ancient sources do not record if or when Anacreon left Athens. He may have left after the assassination of his patron Hipparchus in , or the expulsion of Hipparchus' brother Hippias in , though there is some evidence of his presence in the city later than this.
Anacreon biography of michael jackson: When this circle was broken up by the assassination of Hipparchus, Anacreon seems to have returned to his native town of Teos, where—according to a metrical epitaph ascribed to his friend Simonides—he died and was buried. Nine Lyric Poets — Ancient Greek literature. Dost neither age nor winter know; But, when thou'st drunk, and danced, and sung Thy fill, the flowery leaves among, Voluptuous, and wise withal, Epicurean animal! Anacreon's verses were primarily in the form of monody, which means that they were to be performed by a single voice rather than by a chorus.
Two epigrams from the Greek Anthology suggest that he spent some time in Thessaly, though Gregory Hutchinson doubts this tradition. He probably died at the beginning of the fifth century: Hutchinson says around , Bernsdorff suggests , and Campbell says According to Valerius Maximus he died by choking on a grape seed, though this is generally considered apocryphal.
An epigram in the Greek anthology says that his tomb was on Teos.
Poetry
Form and style
Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ancient Ionic dialect. Like all early lyric poetry, it was composed to be sung or recited to the accompaniment of music, usually the lyre. Anacreon's verses were primarily in the form of monody rather than for a chorus.
In keeping with Greek poetic tradition, his poetry relied on the meter for its construction. Metrical poetry is a particularly rhythmic form, deriving its structure from patterns of phonetic features within and between the lines of verse. The phonetic patterning in Anacreon's poetry, like all the Greek poetry of the day, is found in the structured alternation of "long" and "short" syllables.
The Ionic dialect also had a tonal aspect to it that lends a natural melodic quality to the recitation.
See full list on newworldencyclopedia.org Lucian mentions Anacreon amongst his instances of the longevity of eminent men, as having completed eighty-five years. Metrical poetry is a particularly rhythmic form, deriving its structure from patterns of stress within and between the lines of verse. Thee country hinds with gladness hear, Prophet of the ripened year! O I am blest with ample wit To fix the bridle and the bit, And make thee bend Each turning-end In harness all the course of it.Anacreon's meters include the anacreonteus.
The Greek language is particularly well suited to this metrical style of poetry but the sound of the verses does not easily transfer to English. As a consequence, translators have historically tended to substitute rhyme, stress rhythms, stanzaic patterning and other devices for the style of the originals, with the primary, sometimes only, connection to the Greek verses being the subject matter.
More recent translators have tended to attempt a more spare translation which, though losing the sound of the originals, may be more true to their flavor. A sample of a translation in the English rhyming tradition is included below.
Themes and subjects
Anacreon's poetry touched on universal themes of love, infatuation, disappointment, revelry, parties, festivals, and observations of everyday people and life.
It is the subject matter of Anacreon's poetry that helped to keep it familiar and enjoyable to generations of readers and listeners. His widespread popularity inspired countless imitators, which also kept his name alive.
Anacreon had a reputation as a composer of hymns, as well as of those bacchanalian and amatory lyrics which are commonly associated with his name.
Two short hymns to Artemis and Dionysus, consisting of eight and eleven lines respectively, stand first amongst his few undisputed remains, as printed by recent editors. But hymns, especially when addressed to such deities as Aphrodite, Eros and Dionysus, are not so very unlike what we call "Anacreontic" poetry as to make the contrast of style as great as the word might seem to imply.
The tone of Anacreon's lyric effusions has probably led to an unjust estimate, by both ancients and moderns, of the poet's personal character. The "triple worship" of the Muses, Wine and Love, ascribed to him as his religion in an old Greek epigram,[13] may have been as purely professional in the two last cases as in the first, and his private character on such points was probably neither much better nor worse than that of his contemporaries.
Athenaeus remarks acutely that he seems at least to have been sober when he wrote. His character was an issue, because, according to Pausanias, his statue on the Acropolis of Athens depicts him as drunk.[14] He himself strongly repudiates, as Horace does, the brutal characteristics of intoxication as fit only for barbarians and Scythians.[15][16]
Of the five books of lyrical pieces by Anacreon which the Suda and Athenaeus mention as extant in their time, only the merest fragments exist today, collected from the citations of later writers.[15]
A collection of poems by numerous, anonymous imitators was long believed to be the works of Anacreon himself.
Anacreon biography of michael Notes [ edit ]. Two short hymns to Artemis and Dionysus , consisting of eight and eleven lines respectively, stand first amongst his few undisputed remains, as printed by recent editors. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ancient Ionic dialect. They also display literary references and styles more common to the time of their actual composition.Known as the Anacreontea, it was preserved in a 10th-century manuscript which also included the Palatine Anthology. The poems themselves appear to have been composed over a long period of time, from the time of Alexander the Great until the time that paganism gave way in the Roman Empire. They reflect the light-hearted elegance of much of Anacreon's genuine works although they were not written in the same Ionic Greek dialect that Anacreon used.
They also display literary references and styles more common to the time of their actual composition.
A translated poem
Typical of most efforts at translation, this 19th-century one by Walter Headlam takes the subject matter of Anacreon's verses and works them into a rhyming style typical of the English poetry written in Headlam's day.
The subject of the poem still remains: Anacreon complaining that a young woman, whom he compares to a Thracian filly, does not recognize his amatory skills.
Ah tell me why you turn and fly,
My little Thracian filly shy?
Why turn askance
That cruel glance,
And think that such a dunce am I?
O I am blest with ample wit
To fix the bridle and the bit,
And make thee bend
Each turning-end
In harness all the course of it.
But now 'tis yet the meadow free
And frisking it with merry glee;
The master yet
Has not been met
To mount the car and manage thee.[17]
Reception
Ancient
Anacreon was already famous in his own lifetime, depicted on Athenian red-figure vase paintings while he was still alive.
His writings influenced fifth-century Athenian drama, as tragedy adopted his metres, while several surviving comic fragments mention him, and Aristophanes included adaptations of Anacreon's poems in his plays. Ancient philosophical and moralistic writers were divided on Anacreon, with some, such as Plato, portraying him as a wise man, while others condemned him for being too concerned with drunkenness and lust.
By the Hellenistic period, a caricature of Anacreon as drunken and lustful was established; the poems inspired by Anacreon known as the Anacreontea, composed between the first century BC and the sixth century AD, imitate him in both theme and metre, particularly his erotic and sympotic poetry, while avoiding themes present in Anacreon but which fall outside of the stereotype of him.
Anacreon was respected as a poet and included in the canon of nine lyric poets.
The Hellenistic poet Callimachus' "Lock of Berenice" is an adaptation of a poem by Anacreon,Ovid and Propertius allude to him, and he was an important influence on Horace, who refers to him three times in his poetry and frequently alludes to his work.
Modern
The anacreontic meter continued to be used into the medieval period, though the direct influence of Anacreon is uncertain.
The Anacreontea were the most important influence on Anacreon's later reception, with the edition of Henricus Stephanus in initiating a trend for short and playful "Anacreontic" poetry. In the early modern period, Anacreon's poetry was translated into Latin as well as into the vernacular, and poets started once again to adapt his works.
See full list on newworldencyclopedia.org The best remembered one, dated to approximately , was entitled "To Anacreon in Heaven," and tells of Anacreon's adventures in the afterlife. Why do we precious ointments show'r? This tradition has, however, very probably arisen from a confusion with the original emigration of the Teians to Abdera. Cruel bird!The European Anacreontic movement reached its height in the eighteenth century, with Anacreontic groups in Germany, France, and Britain including the London Anacreontic Society ().
In the visual arts, Anacreon was largely shown in a biographical or literary context: Raphael painted him in the company of Sappho in Parnassus, while a caricature by Honoré Daumier illustrates the ancient story that he choked to death on a grape seed.
The ancient stereotype of Anacreon as the elderly, drunken poet of love was illustrated by Nicolas Poussin and Jean-Léon Gérôme.
Notes
References
- Baumbach, Manuel (). "Anacreon". Brill's New Pauly Supplements II - Volume 7: Figures of Antiquity and their Reception in Art, Literature and Music.
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- Bernsdorff, Hans (). Anacreon of Teos: Testimonia and Fragments. Vol.I: Introduction, Text, and Translation.See full list on newworldencyclopedia.org A curse on him who did refine it! Oh that a mirror's form were mine, To sparkle with that smile divine; And like my heart I then should be, Reflecting thee, and only thee! Article Talk. The poems themselves appear to have been composed over a long period of time, from the time of Alexander the Great until the time that paganism gave way in the Roman Empire.
Oxford University Press.
- Brinker, Wolfram (). "Anacreon". Brill's New Pauly Supplements I - Volume 5: The Reception of Classical Literature. doi/_bnps5_e
- Budelmann, Felix (). Greek Lyric: A Selection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Campbell, David A.
(). Greek Lyric II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympis to Alcman. Harvard University Press. ISBN.
- Hutchinson, G. O. (). Greek Lyric Poetry: A Commentary on Selected Larger Pieces.
- Anacreon biography of michael jackson
- Biography of michael jackson
- Anacreon biography of michael jordan
Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN.
- McLachlan, Bonnie (). "Anacreon". In Gerber, Douglas E. (ed.). A Companion to Greek Lyric Poets. Leiden: Brill.
- Yatromanolakis, Dimitrios, Sappho in the Making: The Early Reception, Cambridge, Mass.,