Le occorrenze omometriche nella poesia strofica greca arcaica e classica. Uno studio

This PhD dissertation aims to define and investigate the homometric occurrences in Greek archaic and classical strophic poetry. It is a metrical and verbal poetic tool which operates in monostrophic (AA) and triadic (AAX) responsive structures, determining metrical and verbal correspondences in the same metrical position. Metrical responsion leads to the belief that this was intended by the poet as a mean broadening the semantic level of an ode and the effectiveness of its construction, based on parallelisms, symmetries, concatenations, oppositions, while fulfilling cohesive functions or emphatic, phatic, contrastive, allusive, interjective and evocative ones. Though fragmentation of certain poems does not facilitate the analysis and the commentary of some occurrences, it is possible to state that this is a long-lived tool, provided with attestations in archaic and late-archaic choral lyric (Alcman, Ibycus, Simonides, Pindar, Bacchylides), in Lesbian monodies (Alcaeus), in the strophic production by Stesichorus and in the classical tragic choruses (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides). Moreover, the inseparable unity of music, dance and poetic text leads to the assumption of a link between homometric occurrences and the ways of performing strophic songs, strictly linked to the vexata quaestio of melodic responsion and the role of word accent while composing melodies in a melodic language such as ancient Greek. The research concerns fragments by Alcaeus, Alcman, Stesichorus, Ibycus and Simonides, the epinician odes by Pindar, the Bacchylidean odes, tragedies by Aeschylus and Sophocles and a specimen of three tragedies by Euripides. 361 cases of homometric occurrences are identified. The fact that there are homometric occurrences already in Lesbian poetry and Alcman may be interpreted as a sign of longevity of a tool intended for poetic composition. The variety of its forms and purposes does not penalize but strengthen its significance: correspondences between identical words or similar structures, responsive parallelisms, opposing ideas in the same metrical position give us another tool for analysing the composing ways of an ode, the relevant concepts in the poet’s reasonings, in choral narrations, in commendation of clients, in the developing dramatic action. This work has its own natural limits and renounces easy forcing where it is not possible to extrapolate meanings congruent with the overall context of the composition.