[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
Despite its fundamental importance as the signifier of ancient Greek poetry, meter only recently became the object of study beyond its descriptive and, in relation to the manuscript tradition, prescriptive merit. Meter’s interpretative value benefits from its capacity to reflect and represent rhythm, and, consequently, to co-create listeners’ and readers’ imaginative participation in poetry’s workings—as ‘the sound should seem an echo to the sense’.[1] The study of meter and rhythm is still viewed as only for specialists, though, and is only gradually making its way to the edges of mainstream research in classical philology and linguistics. Numerous recent publications attest to the growing awareness that metrical patterning and variation ought to be studied in relation to both semantics and performance settings, and that meter may suggest, rather than merely reflect, meaning.
An important motivator behind the attempts to make meter move towards the center of research is the annual summer school in metrics and rhythmics in Urbino, Italy. At these occasions, both the more traditional approaches and the modern take on prosody are considered in theory and practice. The tenth (2021) and eleventh (2022) editions of the summer school were organized around a theme (‘Possible approaches’ and ‘Meter and music: text and performance’, respectively), and explicitly aimed at exploring the different ways forward; under the title Greek Meter Today: Prospects for Research, a selection of papers, several by leading scholars in the field, has been published. The result is a handy and accessible set of eleven essays, covering the breadth of prosody study at the moment, and easy and of the appropriate size to grasp for everyone looking for an update in the discipline. The individual essays are limited in word count and number of notes (and, in a few instances, of references); their format as lightning talks makes them very effective as overview and inspiration. The current reviewer sets as his task to summarize the contributions by highlighting the most important and/or innovative insight of each.
Following a short introduction by Liana Lomiento, the eleven essays of this volume are presented under four headings, the first of which, ‘Teoria dei metri tra antichi e moderni’, comprises a single contribution by Andrea Tessier dealing with metrical fundamentals. Tessier is critical of modern meter’s theoretical basis in the system of August Boeckh, a system that is often misunderstood and subverts ancient terminology. Using the acatalectic dactylic tetrameter as an example, Tessier convincingly argues against the ‘prosodic synaphy within a system’ of the final double-short, considered ‘non-final’ in the Boeckhian approach of stichos, period and colon.
The second part, ‘Ecdotica e Teoria metrica antica’, contains three essays on tragedy and three on comedy. Focusing on Sophocles’ Elektra’s parodos, kommos and first two stasima in Finglass 2007, E. Christian Kopff provides an example of alternative manuscript colometry (L = Florence, Laurentianus 32.9) in accordance with the editor’s intuitive preference for the observance of metrically defendable word end over the acceptance of split resolution. Starting from similar discrepancies between transmitted colometry and modern editions, Anna Maganuco introduces the apparatus colometricus to show how Philoctetes’ ‘sonorous entrance’ (S. Phil. 201-218) is metrically accounted for by the chorus’ epiploke of ionics (a minore) and choriambs. Her contribution favors meter’s capacity to evoke over the establishment of sonority based on the semantics of the choral lyrics. Kopff’s and Maganuco’s essays both require the reader to keep a/the critical edition of the passages discussed at hand. The third chapter in the tragedy-section of the second part, by Alessandra Tenore, takes up more pages and makes room for all the strophic arrangements and textual variants considered. Starting from the important notion that individual metrical phrases are preferably identified with regard for the wider rhythmic environment, Tenore deals with textual uncertainties in E. Alcestis 393-403 ≈ 406-415 through accepting that the monody features relatively free responsion between dochmiacs.
The part on comedy opens with an essay by Loredana di Virgilio on the attested colometric alternatives in the scholia metrica vetera on Aristophanes’ Clouds and Peace: do they represent different editions, or should one be viewed as authentic and the rest as mistakes? The grammarian Heliodorus’ preference for the coincidence of word end and colon end (Choerob. ad Hephaest. P. 2252, 16-20 Consbr.) serves as a way out. Considering the possibility of strophic responsion over far greater distances (number of verses) than hitherto accepted, Deborah Ferrante deals with Peace 582-600 as in responsion with 337-399. As a final, and longer, contribution to the subsection comedy, Michele Napolitano reconsiders the cretic-paeonic arrangement of Acharnians 665-675 = 692-702 and 971-985 = 986-999. With proper regard for the arguments brought forward for a colometrical representation of these passages either κατὰ κῶλον or κατὰ μέτρον, Napolitano points out that the scholia analyze the cretic-paeonic passages as system(s) consisting of (δί[ρ]-, τρί[ρ]-, τετρά[ρ]-)ρυθμα κῶλα.
Part III, ‘Metrica è musica’, starts with an essay by Armand D’Angour on ‘meter as music’. Compositional principles that are strictly applied to the text, principles that are suggestive of rhythmical regularity and rigidity, he shows, are regularly overridden when texts are set to melodies. Using modern musical arrangements as comparand for the performance of metrical text (e.g. My Darling Clementine for Archilochus, or Yesterday for the Nestor’s Cup first line) may not convince all readers, but, at least, clearly evidences the limitations of metrical analysis as a mere first step in the appreciation of performed text. A good example of metrical semantics is provided by Marco Ercoles’ contribution, in which he shows how the change from iambo-aeolics to kat’enoplion-epitrites in Pindar’s Olympian 13.86 marked and induced the shift from the account of Pegasus tamed by Bellerophon to the latter’s war-like dance in performance. Tom Phillips concludes section III with an essay on figurative rhythm, taking yet another step in the approach of meter as evocative. Beyond the well-known performative effects of brevia and longa, Phillips interprets as ‘invitations to perform’ fr. 107a Sn.-Maehl. and fr. 152 Sn.-Maehl. As described by Plutarch (Quaest. Conv. 748c, 1-4) the poem’s rhythm substantiates observational involvement and induces listeners to enact the described gestures.
The final section IV, ‘Metrica e stilistica’, features a single contribution by Maria Chiara Martinelli, who investigates the frequency of enjambement and its coincidence with hiatus in the catalectic trochaic tetrameters of Aristophanes. The comic poet’s tendency to allow for hiatus in instances of ‘milder’ enjambement but to handle hiatus more restrictively in case of ‘harsher’ enjambement is, she concludes, in accordance with the phonostylistics of speech. The volume closes with an index of passages cited (pp. 127-131).
Metrica greca oggi thus touches upon many of the issues important in metrical studies today. Inevitably, there are omissions: the relationship between metrical length, rhythmical weight, and dynamic accent; the representation of the rhythm and pace of unplanned speech as evidenced by metrical arrangement; rhythm as the ontogenetic basis of meter; phonology as metrical surface structure. The volume does not aim to be comprehensive; it is successful in establishing a synthesis, between traditional and innovative approaches, between meter as description and meter as interpretation, between rhythm as arising from the phonology of a dead language and rhythm as a given, a suitable comparand for the features of ancient metrical text.
As pointed out above, the contributions vary in size, in the way they either present or presuppose variae lectiones, variation in editions, and descriptions of metrical arrangements, and in the effort taken by the author to introduce the reader into what quickly becomes relatively technical material. The contributions in general avoid the use of too technical language and terminology; as a whole, the volume would have benefitted from an introduction outlining the correspondences in use of notation systems and the differences between meter as a surface structure and rhythm as phonetic realization. Digested as a whole, the volume features a valuable introduction with Tessier’s critique of Boeckhian phrasing, and a rewarding crescendo with sections III and IV. Copy-editing overlooked quite a few infelicities, but none that distract from the core message of the contributions.
I mention the volume as a whole again when considering the readership of Metrica greca oggi. Individual chapters may not garner much attention, in part because several of the chapters do not move beyond what the authors have convincingly and more extensively argued elsewhere. The volume, however, caters to the interest of those looking for an update in a discipline that often, regrettably, remains on the margins of classical philology. Given this marginal position of the study of meter, rhythm, and prosody in general, a look through this handy volume would deserve a rather broad readership among scholars and students of ancient Greek literature and linguistics: pending the appearance of a companion that will help relocate the study of meter to the gravitational center of language analysis,[2] Metrica greca oggi’s variety of approaches and audacity of results justifies the foregrounding of meter in the study of ancient Greek today and tomorrow.
Authors and titles
Liana Lomiento, Premessa
I. Teoria dei metri tra antichi e moderni
1. Andrea Tessier, Perché non dovremmo più dirci Boeckhiani (e tantomeno ‘Boeckhisti’)
II. Ecdotica e teoria metrica antica
2. Christian Kopff, The Colometry of Sophocles’ Electra in Finglass and Sophocles’ Manuscript L
3. Anna Maganuco, L’ingresso ‘sonoro’ di Filottete (Soph. Phil. 201-218): quale assetto metrico?
4. Alessandra Tenore, La monodia di Eumelo nell’Alcestis (vv. 393-403 = 406-415): problemi metrici e testuali
5. Loredana Di Virgilio, Alternative colometriche negli Scholia vetera ad Aristofane
6. Deborah Ferrante, La responsione a distanza nei canti di Aristofane. Il caso dei vv. 582-600 della Pace
7. Michele Napolitano, Riflessioni sulla colometria di alcune sezioni liriche di Aristofane. Il caso dei sistemi cretico-peonici
III. Metrica è musica: Armand D’Angour, La metrica come la musica: osservazioni sugli effetti nella pratica
8. Marco Ercoles, La danza guerresca di Bellerofonte: metrica, musica e performance nell’Ol. 13 di Pindaro
9. Tom Phillips, Figurative Rhythm
IV. Metrica e stilistica
10. Maria Chiara Martinelli, Enjambement e iato nel tetrametro trocaico catalettico di Aristofane
Notes
[1] Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711), l. 365, cited by Phillips, this volume, 109.
[2] In particular the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Greek and Latin Meter, edited by Joel B. Lidov and Andrew Bekker, to appear in 2026.