Bardo de Saldo wrote:My conclusion is that, when reading dactylic hexameters, one would use the accents for pitch, disregard them for stress, stress every ictus (metrics overpowering individual words), and emphasize the stress where an accent falls on the ictus. Does that make sense?
Bardo de Saldo wrote:Benner, in his Selections from Homer’s Iliad says: “The first syllable of each foot is emphasized in oral reading. This stress of the voice is called ictus (...)”
Our own annis says somewhere in this forum (I quote from memory, and excuse me if I misunderstood): “Even if indeed the accents represent a change in pitch, that change is accompanied by stress.”
Bardo de Saldo wrote:Will, if I toss the ictus out the window, where do I stress?
The only alternatives that I can think of are stressing the accented vowels, or sounding flat. Could it be stressing based on phrase intonation rather than individual words?[
That would mean having to actually understand what you're saying!
annis wrote:Bardo de Saldo wrote:Benner, in his Selections from Homer’s Iliad says: “The first syllable of each foot is emphasized in oral reading. This stress of the voice is called ictus (...)”
This is an older practice. Well, I call it older. I suppose it is still taught in most schools. If you're going to go for a reconstructed pronunciation - pitch accent, attending carefully to vowel length - I would ignore Benner's advice here. In fact, I would advise tossing the whole "ictus" idea out the window.
Really??? You mean ictus is all a modern scam?
Bombichka wrote:Really??? You mean ictus is all a modern scam?
I think some Latin grammarians mentioned the ictus, otherwise it wouldn't even be called that (ictus is Latin for "stress")
I've read about it in my favourite Vox Graeca by W.S. Allen. There, Allen concludes that long (or rather "heavy") syllables had a greater stressability than the "light" ones, which implies they tended to be more emphasized while reciting poetry.
Eureka wrote:Bombichka wrote:Really??? You mean ictus is all a modern scam?
I think some Latin grammarians mentioned the ictus, otherwise it wouldn't even be called that (ictus is Latin for "stress")
I've read about it in my favourite Vox Graeca by W.S. Allen. There, Allen concludes that long (or rather "heavy") syllables had a greater stressability than the "light" ones, which implies they tended to be more emphasized while reciting poetry.
Then we must not ignore it, says I.
chad wrote:i think the ictus stuff is artificial...
Bombichka wrote:But, then again, when we speak of musical measures, we cannot dispense with the idea of stress/ictus. There's simply no other way.
annis wrote:Bombichka wrote:But, then again, when we speak of musical measures, we cannot dispense with the idea of stress/ictus. There's simply no other way.
Really? Plenty of musical traditions have fixed, rhythmical cycles without a strong pulse (stress).
Bombichka wrote:annis wrote:Really? Plenty of musical traditions have fixed, rhythmical cycles without a strong pulse (stress).
The question, then, is, should we number the Greek musical tradition amongst these, and why.
annis wrote:Bombichka wrote:annis wrote:Really? Plenty of musical traditions have fixed, rhythmical cycles without a strong pulse (stress).
The question, then, is, should we number the Greek musical tradition amongst these, and why.
Absolutely. I just don't want the possibility tossed out before consideration.
Bombichka wrote:but here's one more point that just came to my mind as I was reading Theognis a while ago:
Allen quotes a passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus where he speaks of the ancient musicians measuring the sounds in the following way:
a consonant: 1/2 mora ([face=spionic]xro/noj prw=toj[/face])
a short vowel: 1 mora
a long vowel: 2 morae
thus, from the point of vue of the [face=spionic]r(uqmikoi/[/face], [face=spionic]ke/ntron[/face] is relatively shorter than
[face=spionic]skh=ptron[/face].
but, from a prosodic point of view, they both count as "long" (Allen rightly prefers the Indian term "heavy") syllables in the verse.
now, if verse was based only on short-long syllable alternations, due to the considerable differences between all the kinds of syllables that were regarded as "long", this alternation couldn't have been so neat. so, shouldn't we suppose there must have been something else?
annis wrote:Theognis? Did you read this on your own or for a class? I get the idea he isn't read much these days.
Already we're in a little trouble. In those languages which have long and short vowels, very few have a short:long ratio of 2:1. I believe 1.2:1 is the lowest and about 1.8:1 is quite common. So this mora system is already very likely a bit artificial.
No, because even if the phonetic reality isn't so neat, the poetic practice followed it. Some modern languages still arrange verse by syllable lengths, and some of those would consider a closed syllable with a long vowel longer than an open syllable with a long vowel (Urdu is one, I believe). So we have comparisons to make, and Greek does appear to consider heavy and extra-heavy syllables the same as far as the meter is concerned.
Bardo de Saldo wrote:You have convinced me, William. You also agree with the best homeric performers that I know, Danek and Hagel ( http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/sh/ ). On their web page, past the bibliography, they talk about hot issues like enjambment and phraseology.
I also like the "flow to the caesura and ebb to the end of the line" metaphor for the hexameter better than the "marching to certain death" one.
chad wrote:hi eureka, just quickly looking at those diagrams with the music staves for the 1st time, the first few notes on the bottom staff look right for a scale within the compass of the staff, as you have a run of graves, so from the first syllable to the acute in ai)gio/xoio is a steady rise, and if you position the accented syllable in ai)gio/xoio at the top of the staff, then the prior syllables must be approximately where they are. it's just in the diagram 2, hagel didn't account for anathesis after the grave su\n for some reason so the diagrams differ there.
Bardo de Saldo wrote:I can see your music notation. It's missing the key. Are the actual notes irrelevant, and you're only interested in their relationship? (Maybe the key is not neccesary if you know the notes in a khitara.)
Bardo de Saldo wrote:What's the purpose of your charts?
Bardo de Saldo wrote: I criticised the music you sent me assuming that it was meant for the ear, not for the brain.
Bardo de Saldo wrote: (hope I didn't rub the wrong way).
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