Nine Lyric Poets

The nine muses: Clio, Thalia, Erato, Euterpe, Polyhymnia, Calliope, Terpsichore, Urania, Melpomene

The Nine Lyric or Melic Poets were a canonical group of ancient Greek poets esteemed by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria as worthy of critical study.

In the Palatine Anthology, they are stated to have established lyric song. [1]

They were:

In most Greek sources, the word melikos (from melos, "song") is used, but the variant lyrikos (from lyra, "lyre") became the regular form in Latin (as lyricus) and in modern languages. The ancient scholars defined the genre on the basis of the musical accompaniment, not the content. Thus, some types of poetry which would be included under the label "lyric poetry" in modern criticismnamely, the elegy and iambus which were performed with flutesare excluded.

The Nine Lyric Poets are traditionally divided among those who primarily composed choral and those who composed monodic verse. This division is, however, contested by some modern scholars.[2]

See also

References

  1. J. M. Edmonds - Lyra Graeca (p.3) Wildside Press LLC, 2007 ISBN 1434491307 [Retrieved 2015-05-06]
  2. Cf. esp. M. Davies's "Monody, Choral Lyric, and the Tyranny of the Hand-Book" in Classical Quarterly, NS 38 (1988), pp. 5264.
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