"Poeti greci": in defense of ancient literatures

Journalist-blogger Ottavio Rossani has announced at poesia the publication of an anthology of ancient Greek writings titled Poeti greci. Da Omero al VI secolo d.C., a work of ancient poetries translated and edited by the esteemed Greek and Latin scholar Vincenzo Guarracino (August 2011). Rossani's post is more than just a notice for a book launch; it's an important defense of literary classicism, one intended primairly for high school students enrolled in the rigorous classical studies program (Un’opera necessaria, anche per finalità didattiche nei licei classici). The reference to high school studies got my attention.

The liceo classico is an academic course of studies, at the high school level, in which university-bound students between the ages of 14 to 19 learn the ancient Greek and Latin languages and their literatures. It's the contemporary Liceum. Rossani's review of Guarracino's text praises both editorial and marvelous translation work.To include both the major and less well known literary lights is not to invite the teacher and impressionable adolescent to give an approval rating of ancient authors, determining which authors, or types of poetries, failed and which succeeded, and why. With author selections coming from an authorized Antologia Palatina (Palatine Anthology) source, the curriculum objective is to give a balanced literary & historical overview shorn of uninformed critical judgement (English translations mine).

Tralasciamo qui di parlare di poeti consacrati dalla copiosità delle opere lasciate e dalla fama che ne è conseguita per l’altezza della scrittura e per la veridicità esistenziale delle loro intuizioni come Omero, Esiodo, Sofocle, Euripide, Eschilo, Pitagora, Platone e Aristotele (potrebbe essere una sorpresa constatare che anche questi ultimi tre padri della filosofia sono stati anche poeti, autori di epigrammi, inni e odi). Piace invece sollecitare l’attenzione su autori meno noti o addirittura ignoti, ai quali Guarracino da restituito il merito di avere scritto epigrammi di notevole incisività oppure liriche di grande emozione.

( Let's not just talk of poets famous for both literary output and literary excellence and cultural significance, such as Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Euripedes, Aeschylus, Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle: it may even come as a surprise to some that the last three-mentioned "fathers of philosophy" were also poets, authors of epigrams, hymns and odes. I'd like to draw attention to the inclusion of authors who are less well known or who've been unjustly ignored. It's to Guarracino's credit that he's portrayed them as authors of epigrams of incisive & lyrical beauty) 

Guarracino's anthology encourages a literary studies that leads to literary appreciation: rigorous language study coupled to history and culture studies can do nothing but usher names like Sappho, Nosside, Archilochus, Anacreon and Pindar into the light of public discourse. Presumably the editor-translator has something like an Arnoldian ideal of cultural transmission in mind, a consolidation in young imaginations of the best from the past, but there's also the matter of literary influences. A young classicist in training may choose to specialize in her postsecondary years.

The classical canon can also be a living breathing influence on a twentieth century poetics ,as in the case of the pattern poems of Simias of Rhodes. Not a case of slavish imitation but, again, of preserving from the past what's best and innovative in the arts & sciences. Even the incisive epigrammatic style of a Karl Krause or Alberto Casiraghy (perhaps even Chesterton, Hitchens) can trace its form & impetus to ancient poets, scientists & thinkers. The principle of literary transmission (what works are worth examining and why) and influence (how they can inform a contemporary sensibility) is a clearly traceable one:

E Guarracino è andato a pescare soprattutto appunto nell’Antologia palatina un gruppo di epigrammisti di grande forza espressiva e di universali concetti che ancora oggi sono validissimi e potrebbero guidare la convivenza civile. Il che significa che in fondo chi scrive alla fine non inventa quasi più nulla, e spesso senza nemmeno saperlo non fa che riscrivere idee e concetti, massime che sono stati già elaborati dai predecessori

(Guarracino has found in the Palatine Anthology a core of epigrammatic writings of such great expressive and universal significance that they're available today as valid models in a contemporary civil society. The writer really invents nothing, and may not even recognize the influence of received ideas, perhaps even unaware that it's all already been said by his predecessors)

To appreciate classical authors is not just to determine how and why the great literary exemplars from the age of Homer onwards work but to see in them imitation models. This is the upshot of Rossani's review of Guarracino's anthology. The classical past is an inexhaustible and rich repository of qualities of love, wisdom, & a true literary sentimentality that never get 'old', even to the iPhone and Facebook generation. With understanding comes reverence for the classical past, and the desire to write (perhaps to be) like them. What wonderful ideals to instil in young minds. What a wonderful European educational model.