Gnomic poetry
Gnomic poetry consists of meaningful sayings put into verse to aid the memory. They were known by the Greeks as gnomes (c.f. the Greek adjective γνωμικός (gnomikos) "appertaining to an opinion or aphorism"). A gnome was defined by the Elizabethan critic Henry Peacham as "a saying pertaining to the manners and common practices of men, which declareth, with an apt brevity, what in this our life ought to be done, or not done".[1]
It belongs to the broad family of wisdom literature, which expresses general truths about the world. Topics range over the divine and secular, from moral aphorisms to hierarchical social relationships.[citation needed]
Ancient Greek gnomic literature
The gnomic poets of Greece, who flourished in the 6th century BC, were those who arranged series of sententious maxims in verse. These were collected in the 4th century, by Lobon of Argos, an orator, but his collection has disappeared.[1] Hesiod's Works and Days is considered to be one of the earliest works of this genre.
The chief gnomic poets were
The moral poem attributed to
These gnomes or maxims were extended and put into literary shape by the poets. Fragments of Solon, Euenus, and
Gnomes, in their literary sense, belong to the dawn of literature, in their naiveté and their simplicity and moralizing. Many of the ethical reflections of the great dramatists, and in particular of
J. A. Symonds writes that the gnomic poets mark a transition from Homer and Hesiod to the dramatists and moralists of Attica.[2]
Medieval and early modern gnomic literature
Gnomes are frequently to be found in the ancient literatures of
The gnomic spirit has occasionally been displayed by poets of a homely philosophy, such as
With the gnomic writings of Pibrac it was long customary to bind up those of
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i public domain: Gosse, Edmund (1911). "Gnome and Gnomic Poetry". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–152. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Symonds, J.A., Studies of the Greek Poets, p. 256.
- ^ Jackson, Kenneth, Early Welsh Gnomic Poems. University of Wales Press, Cardiff. 1935.
References
- ISBN 0-521-21042-9, cf. Chapter 5, "Elegy and Iambus", p. 117 and onwards, for a treatment of Theognis, Solon, and others.
- Murray, Gilbert, A History of Ancient Greek Literature, New York: D. Appleton and company, 1897. Cf. p. 85 and onwards regarding Gnomic Poetry
- Symonds, J. A. (John Addington), Studies of the Greek Poets, London: Smith, Elder, & co, 1873–76.
- James Howell, Lexicon Tetraglotton, 1660; 17th-century collection of gnomic sayings.
Further reading
- Martin, Richard P., Gnomes in Poems: Wisdom Performance on the Athenian Stage. Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, May 2005, Stanford University.