Life of Archilochus

Archilochus lived between 680 and 640 B.C.E. He was born a bastard on the island of Paros where he spent most of his boyhood. His father, Telesicles, was an aristocrat and his mother was a slave woman. Some time after his birth his father founded the colony of Thaso. Archilichus lived and fought in Thaso for the remainder of his life.

Archilochus was known for two things in his life time; for being a soldier and for being a poet. His life as a soldier is often reflected in his poetry. He sang his fellow citizens to war. Many of his songs were made to move his listeners positively towards courageous, aggressive action. His songs voiced the emotions and needs of his people and community. Much of his poetry was performed at public ceremonies such as funerals, military reviews or festive rituals.

He was once engaged to Neobule, daughter of Lycambes, a rich and respectable man. Although Archilochus had been promised her, the father changed his mind and married her to someone else. Archilochus became enraged and went around town destroying the reputations of the father, the fiancee and her sisters in obscene ways. He harassed them to the point at which they chose to die. This event often reappeared throughout his poetry. "It is taken as a proved fact that this singer is one whose love was second only to his hate in its crude ferocity, and it is assumed that he was a poet that used his song as another might a weapon or a tool, for ends that were selfish and immediate" (Burnett 21). His lyrics were used to cause misery to those who displeased him. His personality was that of bitterness and hatred.

Although Archilocus often wrote about poverty it is known that he was a wealthy noble. He was involved in the religious development of his native land. He had a significant role in the Parian Dionysus cult. The poet was also associated with the cults of Demeter and Hercules. He was named as the first to have given the ritual cry that brought Hercles into every victory.

Archilocus was killed at battle by a man named Corax. The Parians built a shrine for Archilochus, proving that the poet had been honored during his time. Most of the information on Archilocus comes from inscribed slabs found in the 1950’s. Before that time very little was known about him and his poetry. "The Parians who made a hero of Archilochus remembered his patriotic poem and his cult songs, but the rest of the ancient world honored him primarily as a poet of abuse, the first and the best, and one whose evil tongue could kill" (Burnett 55).
--Corinna Kaulback
 
 

Archilochus and Greek Lyric Poetry: Form, Style, and Construction

Knowledge:

Lyric poetry: Lyric poetry emerged in Classical Greece late in the Archaic Age. The word "lyric" comes from the word "lyre" which was the musical instrument with which lyric poets originally accompanied themselves. This type of poetry is usually short, in the first person, and attempted to share a personal feeling or emotion.  One such poet is Sappho.
Archilochus: Archilochus was one of the first and most influential lyric poets. He is often given credit for developing iambic form as well as the elegiac couplet. He is especially well known for his biting, personal attacks.  He was considered inspired by the muses (see: Apollo and the Muse)
Versification: Visual examples of metric form (9)
    Iambic: (adjective) when a poem is made up of divisions (feet) with a pattern of an unstressed then stressed syllable.
    Dactylic: (adj.) when a poem is made up of feet in the pattern of unstressed, stressed, stressed.
    Trochaic: (adj.) when a poem is made up of feet in the pattern of stressed, unstressed.
    Trimeter: having three feet per line.
    Tetrameter: having four feet per line.
    Couplet: two consecutive lines of a poem often rhyming.
Epode: a couplet having two dissimilar lines.
Elegaic: a couplet in dactylic hexameter and pentameter.
Ode: a form of lyric poetry developed by Pindar, after Archilochus, often used to praise someone such as the victors of the Olympic Games.
Elegy: another form of lyric poetry generally having three sections: lamentation, questioning/complaining, and a philosophical answer to the question at hand.
Personal Lyric: lyric poetry directly relating to the speaker's ideas and emotions.
Choral Lyric: lyric poetry usually written for the larger community during a celebration or other such occasion.
 

Comprehension:

Archilochus wrote using all the above styles at one time or another. Each style was typically used for one particular thing, for example, traditionally dactyls were used in epic or narrative poetry and iambics were used personal attacks so when Archilochus wanted to combine those two ideas by telling a story in order to attack someone, he would sometimes mix the two within the verse. Either originally or as a result of Archilochus's use of it, iambics often referred more to the type of subject (personal attacks) matter than the strict meter of it.

When Archilochus wrote choral lyric, it would be in order to incite the community to do something. An example of this would be a poem to encourage them to fight bravely in a war. To do this he would either use praise or blame, the latter of the two more often. Praise was when one would describe and glorify past successes in the hopes of having those successes repeated. Blame attempted to get to the same place by describing the failures certain people(s). In this way, Archilochus would create competition between people to do not just their best but better than their neighbors so that they would not be deserving of the blame he would describe.
 

Application:

Lyric poetry explains much about the changes in Classical Greek society and culture. The change from epic poetry--which was impersonal and told heroic tales of men doing the best for the community--to lyric poetry--which was highly individual and personal--shows a general shift in Greek thought from complete emphasis on the state to more of an individualistic emphasis after the emergence of the polis. This isn't to say that citizens of the polis no longer thought or cared about the community, just that the individual became an important component of the polis whereas before his one life was not considered very important in and of itself. An example of this can be found in the following poem by Archilochus:
 

Well, what if some barbaric Thracian glories
in the perfect shield I left under a bush?
I was sorry to leave it--but I saved my skin.
Does it matter? O hell, I'll buy a better one. (Barnstone, 32)
 

Here it can be seen that the personal fear which caused him to leave his shield and run away from a battle is seen as acceptable if not courageous whereas in Homer's day writing so flippantly about cowardliness would have been unheard of.

Lyric poetry was able to explain much about Greek culture at its time and about the changes occurring because it was the thoughts of the people living at that time rather than just the idealistic hopes of the large community which was seen in epic poetry. For example, sexuality was often used in lyric poetry as a subject of personal attack. Archilochus would use indecent language to negatively portray someone using sexual insults or other times he would use indecent language to mock the current societal beliefs by using sexuality generally unaccepted and saying that it is more "true" or "right" than the belief he intends to mock. Through all of these things it is possible to see what Greek societies valued and thought horrible during a particular time.

 
Higher Order Thinking Skills:

Lyric poetry eventually spread to Europe and forms of it are used even now. In France around the 15th century there were troubadours and trouveres who continued the lyric tradition and added new forms such as the canzone and the rondeau. This also occurred in Germany with their lyric poets: minnesingers. During the beginning of the Renaissance, the word "lyric" came to include a broader range of verse that wasn't required to be sung. This type of lyric style can be seen in the English poet and playwright Shakespeare. One of Shakespeare's common forms of poetry was the sonnet which was a type of lyric poetry developed by the Italian lyric poets. Later, in the 18th and 19th centuries there was a profusion of popular lyric poets including William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. At the end of the 19th century that list also includes Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Christina Rossetti and Elizabeth Barret Browning. Modern day, American lyric poets include Robert Frost, Ezra Pound and T.S. Elliot.

Lyric poetry was originally different from other forms of poetry because of its connection to music and so modern lyric poets not only include who we think of as traditional "poets" but also musicians who write their own lyric poetry that they set to music. In actuality this is the closest to the lyric poetry of Classical Greece because of its connection with music. This combination of poetry and music largely didn't exist in the early 20th century because artists would often pair up having one write the music and the other write the lyrics to a song (e.g. the Gershwin brothers, Rogers and Hart, etc.). This is dissimilar from Greek lyric poetry because it isn't one person trying to express him/herself using both language and sound but rather two people attempting to match the other's work in a logical manner.

Interestingly, when lyric poetry (in music) returned in America was when it was going through many of the same type of changes that Greece had been during the original emergence of lyric poetry. The resurgence of "lyric poets" (who wrote the music and lyrics to songs attempting to convey a personal message or feeling) in America occurred during the sixties where, as in Classical Greece, the individual became a much greater emphasis in society. We see this lyric poetry first through performers such as Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Carole King. Now it is currently still a popular medium and can be found in performers such as Suzanne Vega, Tori Amos, and Sarah McLachlan. It is clear that lyric poetry is a valuable form of self-expression and has (and will) continue to exist throughout the existence of humankind even if not always very popular.
--Jen Harvey
 

Bibliography:

Allison, Alexander ed. et. al. The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Third Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983.

Black, Matthew. "Lyric Poetry," Colliers Encyclopedia. United States: Crowell Collier and Macmilliam, Inc, 1967.

Burnette, Anne Pipppin. Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcalus, Sappho. Massachusettes: Harvard University Press, 1983.

Campbell, David A. The Golden Lyre: The Themes of the Greek Lyric Poets. London: Gerald Duckworth Co. Ltd., 1983.

Dawson, Christopher. "Archilochus," Colliers Encyclopedia. United States: Crowell Collier and Macmilliam, Inc, 1967.

"Lyric," Microsoft Encarta 96 Encyclopedia. Funk & Wgnalls Corporation. CD-ROM.

Vandiver, Elizabeth.  Sappho's Hymn to Aphordite. Online. World Wide Web. Oct. 2, 1998. Available: http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/vandiver.html

"Poetry," Microsoft Encarta 96 Encyclopedia. Funk & Wgnalls Corporation. CD-ROM.

Porter, John. Department of Classics University of Saskatchewan CLASS 110: The Greek Lyric Poets. Online. World Wide Web. Oct. 2, 1998. Available: http://www.usask.ca/classics/CourseNotes/LyricPoets.html.

Saint-Andre, Peter. The Individualism of the Poet-Musician. Online. World Wide Web. Oct. 3, 1998. Available: http://www.layernet.com/members/jimfesq/wca/1998/47/deep.html