GREEK SCANSION TOOL SOFTWARE

Hrabanus Maurus’s ninth-century Excerptio de arte grammatica Prisciani is a compendium of prosodic rules intended for classroom use as an aid to the scansion and composition of metrical poetry, a hard-learned skill in the Early Middle Ages, when syllable lengths had disappeared from spoken Latin. Index Terms-Ancient Greek, Greek language, Erasmian pronunciation, computational stichometry, epic poetry.

GREEK SCANSION TOOL SOFTWARE

Moreover, it demonstrates a software application of computational stichometry that exhibits relevant measurements in Ancient Greek epic poetry, verifying the traditional rules of pronunciation. The present study summarizes the older arguments against the Erasmian pronunciation of certain digraphs and presents some new ones. Although this assumption has been strongly opposed by many scholars, it has been also widely adopted by the scientific community, contrary to any piece of evidence that exists on the Greek literary tradition. A main assumption of his regards the pronunciation of digraphs as two separate phonemes, instead of a single one, according to the traditional rule. As many of Bede s definitions influenced numerous generations of medieval grammarians and poets, and the work itself became a model for the genre of Artes metricae, the strong role of its Christianising tendency must not be underestimated.Īccording to the renowned Dutch philologist Desiderius Erasmus, the modern Greek script originates from ancient Greek and is also historical, because the words are written as they were once pronounced and not as they are pronounced today.

This usually manifests itself in minute alterations of wording, but sometimes Bede takes a definite stand for the virtues of Christian verse as opposed to the pre-Christian classics. The aim of this thesis is to examine the ways in which Bede sought to recast the classical poetic heritage in a form more appropriate for Christian scholars. Bede is also the first author to give an appropriate presentation of rhythmic or non-quantitative verse, anticipating later medieval poetic practices. Bede s discussion of other poetic metres is mainly restricted to those employed in Christian hymnody, and their simplified analyses correspond with Christian usage.

Bede s views have been influenced by his belief in the biblical origins of metre, an idea expounded by several Christian apologists. Instead of relying on the example of Vergil and other classics, he seeks to base his presentation of metrical rules, from syllable lengths to larger structures, on the example of Christian poets, most notably Sedulius, implying that pagan authors were even prosodically less advanced than Christian ones. Even here, Bede consciously strives to create a consistently Christian literary norm. The work departs from previous grammatical tradition by incorporating syllable lengths into its discussion of poetic metres, a didactic solution necessitated by the linguistic conditions of Anglo-Saxon England. The main focus of De arte metrica is on hexameter verse and the problems inherent in its composition at a time when syllable quantity had disappeared from spoken Latin.

This historical background, together with the author s Christian agenda, is present in virtually every aspect of the way the work discusses the Latin poetic heritage. It played a central role in the transmission of the classical literary tradition to the medieval audience, but, at the same time, constitutes one of the first efforts at creating a textbook on metrics that was primarily intended for the monastic curriculum. The Venerable Bede s eighth-century De arte metrica was the most important treatise on Latin metrics to emerge in the early Middle Ages.

Greek scansion tool