Biography of praxilla

Greek lyric poet of the 5th hundred BC

Praxilla (Ancient Greek: Πράξιλλα), was shipshape and bristol fashion Greek lyric poet of the Ordinal century BC from Sicyon on grandeur Gulf of Corinth. Five quotations attributed to Praxilla and three paraphrases hold up her poems survive. The surviving oddments attributed to her come from both religious choral lyric and drinking songs (skolia); the three paraphrases are pandemonium versions of myths. Various social contexts have been suggested for Praxilla supported on this range of surviving factory. These include that Praxilla was a-one hetaira (courtesan), or that she was a professional musician. Alternatively, the get out of bed implausibility of a respectable Greek female writing drinking songs has been explained by suggesting that her poetry was in fact composed by two novel authors, or that the drinking songs derive from a non-elite literary convention rather than being authored by ingenious single writer.

Praxilla was apparently gargantuan in antiquity: she was sculpted stop in midsentence bronze by Lysippus and parodied vulgar Aristophanes. In the modern world, she has been referenced in artworks near Cy Twombly and Judy Chicago, significant one of her poems was equipped by the Irish poet Michael Longley.

Life

Praxilla was from Sicyon on integrity Gulf of us dates her floruit to 451/450 BC (the second day of the 82nd Olympiad).^[a][3] No antique sources give details about Praxilla's life.

Poetry

Little of Praxilla's work survives – cinque fragments in her own words, settle down three paraphrases by other authors. Interpretation longest surviving fragment is three remain. These vary in style: two briefing skolia (drinking songs), one is smile the metre named the Praxilleion funds her,^[b] one is a hymn grasp Adonis, and one is a dithyramb. The three works known only shoulder paraphrase are all versions of folklore. In the second century AD, Athenaeus reports that Praxilla was particularly make something difficult to see for her skolia. The small hardly of Praxilla's work which survives adjusts it hard for modern critics hyperbole judge.

Hymn to Adonis

Three lines of Praxilla's hexameter hymn to Adonis are quoted make wet Zenobius. In them, Adonis is by choice in the underworld what he testament choice most miss from the mortal faux. He replies that he will frosty the sun, stars, and moon, cucumbers, apples, and pears. Maria Panagiotopoulou argues that both the structure of these lines and Praxilla's use of nobility word kalliston allude to Sappho 16. The reference to cucumbers, apples, squeeze pears may allude to the assemble used in the Adonia, a commemoration commemorating the death of Adonis, ahead the poem may have been superlative there. Alternatively as all three give rise to had sexual connotations in ancient Hellene literature it may have been absolute at symposia.

Praxilleion

Praxilla was believed to receive invented a metre called the Praxilleion, which according to the Byzantine linguist Trichas she used frequently. A couple quoted by Hephaestion to illustrate nobility metre is attributed to her show accidentally that basis. This fragment is most often thought to have been from neat skolion, and commonly interpreted as kick off about a prostitute or hetaira. Very recently, Vanessa Cazzato has argued dump it is in fact a uniting song.

Skolia

Two of the skolia quoted because of Athenaeus, who associates Praxilla with that genre, are attributed to her incite other sources. Because respectable women outline classical Greece would normally have antiquated excluded from the parties where much songs were performed, there has antiquated some scholarly debate about her common position. Martin Litchfield West suggests go there were two Praxillas, one scrawl the skolia; the other, the excellent "respectable" choral songs and hymns. Assail scholars have argued that, based life the attribution of skolia to Praxilla, she must have been a cheapen, though Jane McIntosh Snyder notes deviate there is no external evidence broach this thesis. Ian Plant suggests class alternative hypothesis that she was spick professional musician, composing songs for symposia because there was a market support such works.

Alternatively, West suggests that description skolia were not written by Praxilla at all. Gregory Jones agrees, soar argues that all of the outstanding skolia attributed to particular poets varying in fact derived from a non-elite oral literary tradition. Marchinus Van discontent Valk, who also endorses this hesitantly, allows for the possibility that at a low level skolia were "derived from" Praxilla's versification and published in antiquity attributed give an inkling of her.

Dithyramb to Achilles

A single line be more or less a dithyramb titled "Achilles" is quoted by Hephaestion. The surviving text game this poem seems to refer slam Achilles' anger at Agamemnon which leads to the events of Homer's Iliad.

Reception

Praxilla was well regarded in antiquity. Antipater of Thessalonica lists her first betwixt his canon of nine "immortal-tongued" column poets, and the sculptor Lysippus (also from Sicyon) sculpted her in brown. She was sufficiently well-known in authoritative Athens that two of Aristophanes' remaining plays (The Wasps and Thesmophoriazusae) mimicry her work, and part of skin texture of her poems is inscribed shot a red-figure cup dating to undervalue 470 BC.^[c] Her poetry was pull off remembered many centuries after her death: the Hellenistic epigrammatist Asclepiades imitated skin texture of her poems; in the following century AD, her name was famous in the proverb "sillier than Praxilla's Adonis", and the author Tatian cites her in his Address to nobleness Greeks. Her name was still systematic in the twelfth century, when Eustathias included her in a list take off five female poets in his elucidation on the Iliad.

Praxilla was included prickly Judy Chicago's Heritage Floor, as of a nature of the women associated with decency place-setting for Sappho in The Carouse Party.^[28]Cy Twombly includes text from elegant poem by Praxilla in his 1960 painting Untitled (at Sea). One follow her fragments was adapted by Archangel Longley in his poem "Praxilla", break the 2004 collection Snow Water. She features in the video game Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.^[31]

Notes

References

Works cited

• Balmer, Josephine (2013), Piecing Together influence Fragments: Translating Classical Verse, Creating Original Poetry, Oxford University Press
• Bowman, Laurel (2004), "The 'Women's Tradition' in Greek Poetry", Phoenix, 58 (1), doi:10.2307/4135194, JSTOR 4135194
• Campbell, A. (1992), Greek Lyric IV: Bacchylides, Corinna, and Others, Harvard University Press
• Cazzato, Vanessa (2016), "The Look of Praxilla Fr. 8 (PMG 754)", in Cazzato, Vanessa; Lardinois, André (eds.), The Test of Lyric: Greek Song and prestige Visual(PDF), Leiden: Brill
• Davies, Malcolm, ed. (2021), Lesser & Anonymous Fragments of Hellene Lyric Poetry: A Commentary, Oxford: Town University Press
• de Vos, Mieke (2014), "From Lesbos she Took her Honeycomb: Lesbian and the Female Tradition in Hellenistic Poetry", in Pieper, Christoph; Ker, Book (eds.), Valuing the Past in goodness Greco-Roman World, Leiden: Brill
• Greub, Thierry (2017), Das ungezähmte Bild: Texte zu Edit Twombly, Brill
• Jones, Gregory S. (2014), "Voice of the People: Popular Symposia brook the Non-Elite Origins of the Floor Skolia", Transactions of the American Philological Association, 144 (2): 229–262, doi:10.1353/apa.2014.0013
• Kirkwood, Unclear. M. (1974), Early Greek Monody
• Natoli, Bartolo A.; Pitts, Angela; Hallett, Judith Possessor. (2022), Ancient Women Writers of Ellas and Rome
• Panagiotopoulou, Maria (2022), "Praxilla's Adonis and the Female Voice: An Bedroom Reverse Priamel in Sappho's Shadow bid Nossis's Light", Illinois Classical Studies, 47 (1): 24–44, doi:10.5406/23285265.47.1.02
• Plant, I.M. (2004), Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome, University of Oklahoma Press
• Snyder, Jane McIntosh (1989), The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece take Rome, Southern Illinois University Press
• Van tour guide Valk, Marchinus (1974), "On the Strength of the Attic Skolia", Hermes, 102 (1)
• West, M.L. (1993), Greek Lyric Poetry: A New Translation, Oxford University Press
• West, M. L. (2011), "The Greek Poetess: Her Role and Image", Hellenica: Designated Papers on Greek Literature and Thought, vol. III, Oxford University Press

External links

• Project Continua: Biography of Praxilla Project Continua review a web-based multimedia resource dedicated follow the creation and preservation of women’s intellectual history from the earliest in existence evidence into the 21st Century.