Group identity and archaic lyric

The symposion served as one of the primary social institutions informing the construction of elite identity in ancient Greece, and in the verses of Alcaeus of Mytilene it offers not only a space for the expression of a shared we-identity, but also a structural framework according to which the poet opposed his we-group to an out-group composed primarily by the tyrant Pittacus. This contribution applies a social identity perspective to both the study of ancient identity and archaic lyric, focusing on Alcaeus 129 and the poet’s use of an out-group to define a we-group identity. The social identity approach examines the cognitive and social processes and structures underlying the formation of social groups and identities. By applying it to sympotic lyric, we can analyze the ongoing process of identification that took place in the symposion and thereby understand the larger processes by which the archaic elite defined themselves and others

Aesthetics · Art · Literature · Physics · Classical Antiquity Studies

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