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Comic Metrical Signatures in Menander's Dyskolos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Dougal Blyth
Dougal Blyth*
Affiliation:
The University of Auckland
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Extract

Many scholars have commented on Menander's facility in alternating between tragic and comic forms of the iambic trimeter, and the subtle effects he creates thereby in manipulating the mood of a scene. But characteristically these effects are interpreted solely in dramatic terms, and the statements made are rather vague, at the most detailed (and rarely then) merely noting that in a given line a particular tone is created by the overall form of metre used. What I aim to show is that deliberate metrical manipulation of a quite different kind is also involved, and in order to appreciate better Menander's art we need to attend to the metrical form of individual words.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 42 , 2008, pp. 56 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2008

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