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Chapter 5 - The Lyric Tradition and Changing Hymnic Forms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2019

Dawn LaValle Norman
Affiliation:
Australian Catholic University, Melbourne
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Summary

Writers of the Greek Imperial period believed that they were living in a great period of prose; it was an element of their self-conscious periodization. When a visitor to Delphi asks in Plutarch’s The Oracles at Delphi are No Longer Given in Verse why the Pythia no longer gives poetic prophecies, the interlocutor Theon explains that it is not only the Pythia that has moved from verse to prose, but a large number of other genres of literature have made the change as well, such as history and philosophy. Modern scholars tend to agree with this ancient assessment. The rise of the novel, the Gospels, the cultural capital of display oratory, even the emphasized innovation of Aelius Aristides’ composition of prose hymns is adduced by modern scholars as evidence of a change that was noticed by authors of the time.

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The Aesthetics of Hope in Late Greek Imperial Literature
Methodius of Olympus' Symposium and the Crisis of the Third Century
, pp. 201 - 240
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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