The Experience of Poetry: From Homer’s Listeners to Shakespeare’s Readers
Stephen Hinds
Derek Attridge’s latest book takes on nothing less than the “experience” of poetry. His special interest is in “the material practices whereby poetry was communicated to an audience or a readership” at successive stages European history (3). In what circumstances it performed, and did sound like? How appear page, who got read it? What were means mechanics publication circulation? Throughout there noticeable preference for speaking listening over writing silent reading, “out loud.” Attridge generally emphasizes live performance when possible else, not, dwells regretfully its irretrievability.After introduction, things unfold thirteen chapters: three ancient Greece, Rome late antiquity, four Middle Ages, English Renaissance. The pageant includes Homeric rhapsodes Norse skalds, post-Augustan recitations Constantinian shape-poems, (in Elizabethan phase) do-it-yourself manuscript miscellanies printer-added commonplace markers. generous chronological span (from ca. 800 BCE early 1600s), range topics covers, embrace scholarship every period. This can make hard pin down. As with other wide-ranging books his decades-long address dynamics literary form—The Singularity Literature (2004), Work (2015), Craft Poetry (2015, written Henry Staten)—the main title gives away little about falls outside ambit.The subtitle—From Homer’s Listeners Shakespeare’s Readers—presages book-long journey through time from spoken written. But are not so tidy. Soon after excellent (and up-to-the-minute) treatment evolution poems oral contexts, we arrive (as classicists will already be expecting) one most intensely writing- reading-based poetic cultures Western tradition, Ptolemaic Alexandria circa 300 BCE. A mere sixty-five pages in, ten chapters still ahead, narrative arc has been completed: listeners readers—job done. Well, hardly. For much rest course, describes ever-fruitful ever-shifting styles coexistence between readers. On occasion repeats itself: “No longer presented as records past, guides future, performances, these texts themselves event, waiting only realized by competent reader” (197). characterizing Italian lyric verse developed Dante Petrarch, but he could aspects Hellenistic third century BCE, Roman first; this survey knows too give any single period monopoly paradigm shifts.There many ways write (or “pre-history”: 11) poetry; despite gravitational pull Renaissance, turns into inventory impressive meticulously curated literary-historical epiphanies, each encountered own present. no formal conclusion; even two-page “envoy” built final chapter lingers more half length that chapter’s Jacobean moment before moving quick twenty-four-century retrospective two paragraphs.It bracing follow prominent senior scholar exploration centuries—millennia—encountered ex cathedra jadedness open enthusiasm should immediately engage readers academic level. endnotes (a vital part book) show critic seeking smartest discussions indeed (on evidence preface) actively befriending specialists get jump on, warning about, angles: “I found almost period, issue subject heated ongoing debate” (7). my area, classical Latin poetry, new speculations public recitation air. tempted properly wary: few take inhabit critical issues others’ periods scrupulously.Back expectations set up book’s cover. “From readers.” readers? Could modern author appropriately represent displacement page? yes, moment, Shakespeare poet stage (except splendid discussion poets 324–27) author, during closure theaters 1592–93, long poem Venus Adonis, which tracked printer reading within rich packaging marketing England time.And thereby hangs larger exclusion. Although elsewhere often embraced interconnectedness interpenetration artistic forms, (despite performance) defined “not-drama.” No Sophocles, Seneca, Shakespearean drama . well, none. Why not? “The line dramatic genres easy draw. Nevertheless, I believe distinguish form relies fictional representation characters interacting another imagined space invites reader enjoy sequence words their patterns potency” (5).There further exclusion, major implications Greek grounding history: song, is, wedded actual music. allows extended coverage to) epic hexameter associated since Greeks “Homer,” argument that, whatever lost musical element here (including stringed accompaniment), have involved limited enhancement pitch accents syllable quantities them, kind melodized speech. case lyric, treated indissoluble now irretrievable union language, music, (at times) dance, bare represented work” (73), draws Heliconian sand: “Poems strictly composed songs, such archaic lyrics, Christian hymns, troubadour verse, paid attention to, assuming dimension largely overrode sounds language original hearers” (6). small matter. Must experience antiquity modernity really dismiss knowable sounds, rhythms, both monodic choral, mention (doubly excluded music drama) ferocious verbal condensations Aeschylean chorus? acephalous account genre, counts ceases accompanied lyre: Sappho Alcaeus, then, Pindar either. output “song-writers [sic]” (39) becomes relevant poetry” adapted Horace some centuries later very different systems performed (if all) likely wielding scroll aspiration Odes 1.1.34) Lesbian lyre.Now, know neither “lyric” nor “poetry,” understand would recognizable practitioners (see Kurke 2000, cited Attridge). skin game reception. Should perhaps here? To sure, mostly stays treating sum previous experiences Yet if ask how fashion listeners, then big story (say) constructs Pindaric experience, Du Bellay Horatian Spenser turn Bellay, Horace, more. Even Horace’s Pindarum quisquis studet aemulari (He Who Would Rival Pindar; 4.2), impossibility emulating Pindar’s “rhythms freed rule” “measureless flow” “deep-sounding voice,” sustained meditation incompatibility systems, also creative energy comes incompatibility. “song” may off limits book, yet unavoidable, because embodied attempt come terms Pindar. disavows “a focus psychological interiority” unavailable enterprise: “What actually went minds bodies those heard remains inaccessible” Up point, writes inside head, real reason decline run way idea. always intimately diachronic dimension, great canvas does replace Thomas M. Greene (1982) complements it.Underlying choices lifelong concern prosody: emphases exclusions (the latter temporary tactical, let said) everything do mission Well-Weighed Syllables (1974) Rhythms put particular sense center inquiries. prosodic structure affect far exceeds anything accustomed find scale. One compelling links shift quantitative accentual basis antique imperative forms accessible performable nonelite worshippers. Another, home turf, surveys metrical experimentation communicate ability Sidney’s iambic pentameters “to capture subtleties tone characterize voice” (287–89). working distinction song finds kinds traction languages settings, including penetrating development canzone sung (194–99).A certain sleight hand required fit twenty-four hundred years pages. Halfway section “given richness fourteenth century’s achievements languages, necessary narrow our corpus” (207); nod, goes English. An earlier fork road taken end discontinues historical vernacular: commendable transparency (148), signals de-emphasizing continuingly robust tradition favor emergent vernacular allow beginning, “recapitulation” oral-to-written progression 1 3. Sacrificed, consequence, Carolingian “renaissance”: critic’s proud affiliation York (viii), room footnote expatriate eighth-century England, York’s Alcuin.In like this, omissions strategic choices. Every wish squeeze (like 4.2, candidate above); otherwise. handsomely produced illustrated, misprints few. noted error substance (89), mistakenly overrules received translation Catullus’s imperfect subjunctive perspiceres 50.17.While stops Shakespeare, repeatedly present aim: “Twenty ago, struck flowering began project” (vii); “[ancient verse] reached direct forebear today printed magazines, recorded tapes discs, disseminated Internet, halls classrooms” (11). So too, sentence offers valedictory gesture “poetic events” engaged “listeners Renaissance present.” bridge now? Two Attridges seem jockey position here, specialist equally track record mediator (post)modern. concerns “pleasure” (6–7) all recurrences, focused specific times, places, (especially) soundscapes. questions handled impressively enough sympathy work recent good reread backlist go quite toward bridging gap another.
Modern Language Quarterly