Paraklausithyron
Paraklausithyron (
poetry.The details of the Greek etymology are uncertain, but it is generally accepted to mean "lament beside a door", from παρακλαίω, "lament beside", and θύρα, "door".[1] A paraklausithyron typically places a lover outside his mistress's door, desiring entry. In Greek poetry, the situation is connected to the komos, the revels of young people outdoors following intoxication at a symposium. Callimachus uses the situation to reflect on self-control, passion, and free will when the obstacle of the door is removed.[2]
After Ovid, the genre disappears from Latin poetry.[3]
The motif is not merely a historical phenomenon: it continues in contemporary songwriting. Steve Earle's song "More Than I Can Do," for example, gives a typical paraklausithyronic situation with such lines as "Just because you won't unlock your door /That don't mean you don't love me anymore" as does his song "Last of the Hardcore Troubadours," in which the singer addresses a woman, saying "Girl, don't bother to lock your door / He's out there hollering, "Darlin' don't you love me no more?" Similarly, the first two verses of Jimi Hendrix's "Castles Made of Sand" involve paraklausithyronic situation of a man kicked out by his lover. Likewise, Bob Dylan's song "Temporary Like Achilles" contains many features typical of the ancient motif (lament at the door, long wait, presence of a guard as a further obstacle, etc.) and recalls the pathos and rhetoric of the Roman elegiac paraclausithyron.
References
- JSTOR 289473.
- ^ Niall Livingstone and Gideon Nisbet, Epigram (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 73–75.
- ^ Canter, H. V. (1920). "The paraclausithyron as a literary theme". The American Journal of Philology, 41(4), 355–368; pp. 365–366.
Sources
- Cairns, Francis (1972). Generic composition in Greek and Roman poetry. Edinburgh, University Press.
- Canter, H. V. (1920). "The paraclausithyron as a literary theme". The American Journal of Philology, 41(4), 355–368. doi:10.2307/289473
- Copley, F. O. (1942, January). "On the origin of certain features of the Paraclausithyron". Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association (pp. 96–107). doi:10.2307/283540
- Cummings, Michael S. (1997) Observations on the development and code of pre-elegiac paraklausithuron. Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Ottawa. Summary in : DA 1997-1998 58 (10) : 3914A. Microform available from : University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor (Mich.), no. AAT NQ21961.
- Thomas, Richard F. (1979), "New Comedy, Callimachus, and Roman Poetry", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 83, pp. 179–206.
- Walker, Janet A. (1979). "Conventions of Love Poetry in Japan and the West" The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Apr., 1979), pp. 31–65.