Wednesday, May 29, 2024
A Difficult Poet?
Hugh-Lloyd-Jones (1922-2009), "Pindar," Greek in a Cold Climate (London: Duckworth, 1991), pp. 22-43 (at 22):
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Pindar has always had a reputation for being difficult. One cannot deny that he is difficult, but the difficulty has been exaggerated; his style and language, once superficial awkwardnesses have been overcome, are hardly as difficult as those of Sophocles. His text is better preserved than that of any of the great tragedians; and though some of his poems are written in complicated metres, about half are written in dactylo-epitrite, whose main features can be set out in half a page.3Adrian Hollis, "William Spencer Barrett 1914-2001," Proceedings of the British Academy 124, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows III (2004) 25-36 (at 34):
3 See P. Maas, Greek Metre (1962), pp. 40-1.
A former pupil, not particularly academic, once lamented to him how difficult he found Pindar; Spencer's reply came out uncensored: 'Oh no, very easy.'
