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The Aesthetics of Dialect in Hellenistic Epigram

Coughlan, Taylor

Abstract Details

2016, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Classics.
This dissertation is a study of dialect choice and dialect mixture in Hellenistic book epigram. The aims of the project are not only linguistic, but also literary; indeed, what motivates the study is an overarching interest in understanding how specific dialect choices can enrich the meaning of the poem in which they appear. Scholars have only recently started to include dialect in their readings of individual epigrams, but no one has systematically studied the entire corpus. In order to more fully understand Hellenistic book epigram and its flourishing during a period of great social, cultural, and literary change, we must confront the genre’s use of dialect or otherwise miss out on an important component in this self-conscious genre’s production of poetic meaning. Following an introduction that sets out the interpretive framework for the dissertation and explores issues of dialect transmission in the manuscript tradition, the study falls into two parts, each comprising three chapters. In the first part, I attempt to situate dialect choice and mixture in its poetic and literary-critical contexts. In the first chapter, I investigate dialect usage in pre-Hellenistic Greek poetry, not including inscribed epigram, arguing that dialect mixture for poetic effect existed in Archaic and Classical poetry. Poets used dialect to comment on the relationship of their work to other poetic traditions and to mark regional identity of characters or speakers, both of which are precursors to Hellenistic usage. In the second chapter, I examine the development of the ancient concept of dialect and attempts to reconstruct some of the literary-critical discourses on the aesthetic propriety of dialect use and dialect mixture. In the third chapter, I treat dialect usage in the tradition of inscribed epigram which is overwhelmingly determined by the regional identity of the deceased or dedicator. Since Hellenistic book epigram borrows heavily from inscribed epigram, I pay particular attention to the the injection of authorial identity into the previously linear relationship between the voice of the inscribed epigram and the identity of the dedicator or deceased. In the second part, I offer analyses of dialect use and dialect mixture as a literary device in Hellenistic book epigram. In the first chapter, I begin with dialect as a marker of identity and place, which has a long history in Archaic and Classical poetry and the tradition of inscribed epigram. I explore the various poetic ends to which Hellenistic book epigrammatists put this strong association between dialect and place. I argue that this association was integral to the use of dialect in Hellenistic book epigram, and so the results of this chapter inform the rest of the analysis in the dissertation. In the second chapter, I treat the erotic epigrams of Asclepiades, one of the earliest and most influential book epigrammatists. I suggest that the unity of these poems’ Ionic dialect serve a dual purpose, both to situate theses epigrams in the tradition of sympotic-erotic poetry dating back to Theognis and to allow an identification between the voice of the anonymous lover and Asclepiades, a native of Ionic-speaking Samos. In the third chapter, I turn to the early reception of dialect in Hellenistic book epigram. Through the examination of imitations by late Hellenistic epigrammatists, such as Antipater of Sidon and Meleager, I demonstrate that these poets inventively used dialect in order to signal their relationship to and reading of model epigrams. By treating this dialectal variety as a dynamic element of the genre and not necessarily evidence of intractable errors in the manuscript tradition, the results of my research demonstrate that dialect choice and mixture contributed meaningfully to the aesthetics, organization, and reception of Hellenistic epigram.
Kathryn Gutzwiller, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Alexander Sens, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Lauren Ginsberg, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
405 p.

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Citations

  • Coughlan, T. (2016). The Aesthetics of Dialect in Hellenistic Epigram [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1459440096

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Coughlan, Taylor. The Aesthetics of Dialect in Hellenistic Epigram. 2016. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1459440096.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Coughlan, Taylor. "The Aesthetics of Dialect in Hellenistic Epigram." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1459440096

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)