The experience of poetry : from Homer's listeners to Shakespeare's readers / Derek Attridge.

First edition.

9780191873898 (electronic book)

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2019.

English

1 online resource : illustrations.

PN4151

808.545

Was the experience of poetry - or a cultural practice we now call poetry - continuously available across the two-and-a-half millennia from the composition of the Homeric epics to the publication of Ben Jonson's Works and the death of Shakespeare in 1616? How did the pleasure afforded by the crafting of language into memorable and moving rhythmic forms play a part in the lives of hearers and readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, Europe during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and Britain during the Renaissance? In tackling these questions, this text first examines the evidence for the performance of the Iliad and the Odyssey and of Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the impact of the invention of writing on Alexandrian verse, the performances of poetry that characterised Ancient Rome, and the private and public venues for poetic experience in Late Antiquity.

Was the experience of poetry - or a cultural practice we now call poetry - continuously available across the two-and-a-half millennia from the composition of the Homeric epics to the publication of Ben Jonson's Works and the death of Shakespeare in 1616? How did the pleasure afforded by the crafting of language into memorable and moving rhythmic forms play a part in the lives of hearers and readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, Europe during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and Britain during the Renaissance? In tackling these questions, this text first examines the evidence for the performance of the Iliad and the Odyssey and of Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the impact of the invention of writing on Alexandrian verse, the performances of poetry that characterised Ancient Rome, and the private and public venues for poetic experience in Late Antiquity.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on February 8, 2019).

Oxford scholarship online.

Print version: 9780198833154