Chapter Five. Solon’s Imagery (Simile And Metaphor)

Homer's epic poems give clear evidence to the fact that, in an oral culture, the tradition as such cannot survive abstractly but only as a paradigm of doings. Homer presents a series of graphic personifications within his epics, amongst which the most notable may be the paradigms of Ate and the Prayers in Il. 9.502-512 and of Ate in Il. 19.91-136. In the context of early elegy, Solon's avoidance of myths or references to the past is striking. Rather than employing divine abstractions in the manner of Homer, Solon uses imagery (similes and metaphor) from the world of nature to articulate the conceptual framework at the center of his ethical/political system. The main rhetorical features of Solon's imagery can be most clearly discerned through comparison with the very different features and strategies which characterize Tyrtaeus' poetry.Keywords: Homer; Solon's imagery; Tyrtaeus' poetry

Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology) · Elegy · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Mythology · Poetry · Rhetorical question · Simile · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · History · Philosophy