Theognis of Megara: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Ancient6th-century BC Greek lyric poet}}

'''Theognis of Megara''' ({{lang-grc-gre|[[wikt:Θέογνις#Ancient Greek|Θέογνις]] ὁ Μεγαρεύς}}, ''Théognis ho Megareús'') was a [[Greek lyric poet]] active in approximately the sixth century BC. The work attributed to him consists of [[gnomic poetry]] quite typical of the time, featuring ethical maxims and practical advice about life. He was the first Greek poet known to express concern over the eventual fate and survival of his own work<ref>B. M. Knox, 'Theognis', ''The Cambridge History of Greek Literature:I Greek Literature'', Cambridge University Press (1985), P. Easterling and B. Knox (ed.s), pages 138</ref> and, along with [[Homer]], [[Hesiod]] and the authors of the [[Homeric Hymns]], he is among the earliest poets whose work has been preserved in a continuous manuscript tradition (the work of other [[Archaic Greece|archaic]] poets is preserved as scattered fragments).<ref>Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb Classical Library (1999), page 8</ref> In fact more than half of the extant [[elegiac]] poetry of Greece before the [[Alexandrian period]] is included in the approximately 1,400 lines of verse attributed to him ,<ref>cf. Highbarger, p.170</ref> (though several poems traditionally attributed to him were composed by others, e.g. [[Solon,]] and Euenos)[[Euenus]].<ref>Dorothea Wender; Penguin Classics edition</ref> Some of these verses inspired ancient commentators to value him as a moralist<ref>B. M. Knox, 'Theognis', ''The Cambridge History of Greek Literature:I Greek Literature'', Cambridge University Press (1985), P. Easterling and B. Knox (ed.s), page 140</ref> yet the entire corpus is valued today for its "warts and all" portrayal of aristocratic life in archaic Greece.<ref>David Mulroy, ''Early Greek Lyric Poetry'', The University of Michigan Press (1992), page 171</ref>

It was probably his reputation as a moralist, significant enough to deserve comment by Aristotle and Plato, that guaranteed the survival of his work through the Byzantine period.<ref>B. M. Knox, 'Theognis', ''The Cambridge History of Greek Literature:I Greek Literature'', Cambridge University Press (1985), P. Easterling and B. Knox (ed.s), page 158</ref> However, it is clear that we don'tdo not possess his total output. The Byzantine [[Suda]], for example, mentions 2 8002800 lines of elegiacs, twice the number preserved in medieval manuscripts. Different scholars have different theories about the transmission of the text to account for the discrepancy.<ref>David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), page 346</ref> yetThe itsurviving ismanuscripts generallyof agreedTheognis thatpreserve thean presentanthology collectionof actuallyancient containselegy, tooincluding manyselections versesfrom underother theelegists namesuch ofas Theognis:[[Tyrtaeus]]; thescholars collectiondisagree appearsover inwhich factparts towere be an anthology that includes verseswritten by himTheognis.<ref>Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb Classical Library (1999), page 7</ref> The collection is preserved in more than forty manuscripts, comprising a continuous series of elegiac couplets that modern editors now separate into some 300 to 400 "poems", according to personal{{clarify|date=January 2019}} preferences.

The lines were much quoted in antiquity, as for example by [[Stobaeus]] and [[Sextus Empiricus]], and it was imitated by later poets, such as [[Sophocles]] and [[Bacchylides]].<ref group ="nb">Stobaeus 4.52, Sextus Empiricus ''Pyrrh. hypot.'' 3.231, Sophocles ''O.C'' 1225 and Bacchylides 5.160–2{{emdash}}cited by David Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'' page 366</ref> Theognis himself might be imitating others: each of the longer hexameter lines is loosely paraphrased in the shorter pentameter lines, as if he borrowed the longer lines from some unknown source(s) and added the shorter lines to create an elegiac version.<ref>Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb Classical Library (1999), note 1 page 235</ref> Moreover, the last line could be imitating an image from Homer's ''[[Odyssey]]'' (5.482), where Odysseus covers himself with leaves though some scholars think the key word {{lang|grc|ἐπαμησάμενον}} might be corrupted.<ref>Thomas Hudson-Williams, ''The elegies of Theognis and other elegies included in the Theognidean sylloge'' (1910), note 428 pages 205–6</ref><ref>see also J. M. Edmonds (ed.), ''Elegiac Poems of Theognis'', ''Elegy and Iambus'' Vol.1, note 103, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0479%3Avolume%3D1%3Atext%3D11%3Asection%3D2#note103 Persus Digital Library]</ref><ref group ="nb">

=== Modern scholarship===

==== Friedrich Nietzsche ====

Nietzsche valued Theognis as an archetype of the embattled aristocrat, describing him as "...a finely formed nobleman who has fallen on bad times", and "a distorted [[Janus]]-head" at the crossroads of social change.<ref>quoted in a biography on Nietzsche by Curt Paul Janz and cited in a note by Maudemarie Clark and Alan Swensen in their edition, ''On the Genealogy of Morality: a polemic'', Hackett Publishing Company (1998), page 133</ref><ref group ="nb">"Theognis appears as a finely formed nobleman who has fallen on bad times...full of fatal hatred toward the upward striving masses, tossed about by a sad fate that wore him down and made him milder in many respects. He is a characteristic image of that old, ingenious somewhat spoiled and no longer firmly rooted blood nobility, placed at the boundary of an old and a new era, a distorted [[Janus]]-head, since what is past seems so beautiful and enviable, that which is coming{{emdash}}something that basically has an equal entitlement{{emdash}}seems disgusting and repulsive; a typical head for all those noble figures who represent the aristocracy prior to a popular revolution and who struggle for the existence of the class of nobles as for their individual existence."{{emdash}}from a biography of Nietzsche by Curt Paul Zanz, quoted and translated by Maudemarie Clark and Alan Swensen in their edition, ''On the Genealogy of Morality: a polemic'', Hackett Publishing Company (1998), page 133</ref> Not all the verses in the collection however fitted Nietzsche's notion of Theognis, the man, and he rejected ''Musa Paedica'' or "Book 2" as the interpolation of a malicious editor out to discredit him.<ref>Thomas Hudson-Williams, ''The Elegies of Theognis'', G. Bell and Sons Ltd (1910), pages 60–61</ref> In one of his seminal works, ''[[On the Genealogy of MoralsMorality]]'', he describes the poet as a 'mouthpiece' of the Greek nobility: Theognis represents superior virtues as traits of the aristocracy and thus distinguishes (in Nietzsche's own words) the "truthful" aristocrat from the "lying common man".

==== Charles Darwin ====

[[Category:LGBTPederasty peoplein fromancient Greece]]

[[Category:Ancient6th-century LGBTBC peopleGreek poets]]