Automated metric profiling and comparison of Ancient Greek verse epics in Hexameter

This article describes a software tool, named Dactylo, which is capable of performing metrical analysis, alias scansion, of epics written in hexameter. The automated scansion is based on well-known scanning rules of various theoretical works. The development methodology introduces the concept of computerized metric profiling and metric distance, which is a measurement value that reflects the degree of similarity or dissimilarity between different epics. For this purpose, eight renowned epics have been scanned, including Iliad and Odyssey, with plenty of statistical information. Based on these outcomes, these epics can be classified in groups that reflect very well the three periods of their creation, namely Classical, Hellenistic and Late Antiquity. Dactylo demonstrates its ability to produce statistics for hexameter’s metric patterns in a massive scale, easily and accurately, becoming so a contribution of Computational Linguistics to the diachronic comparative and quantitative language studies

Homer and Oral Tradition: The Formula, Part I

Processing note: review needed on strange symbol in abstract.This survey of the formula in Homer is divided into ten sections; the first five follow, the remainder will appear in a later issue of Oral Tradition. The sections are arranged as follows: Bibliographies and surveys ; The structure of the Homeric hexameter ; The formula and the hexameter ; The history of Homeric formulae: Homer, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and later poetry ; Enjambement ; Studies of specifi c formulae ; Formulae and meaning ; Analyses of formulae and tests for orality ; Homer and the criticism of oral poetry ; Future directions. Each of the first nine sections is followed by a list of references; a few items appear in more than one list. I have commented on most of the items, but for reasons of space a few are merely listed. Reviews are normally not included, and my knowledge of dissertations is usually limited to the synopses in Dissertation Abstracts. There must be omissions, for which I apologize; I will try to refer to them in later updates.--Page 171.Mark W. Edwards (Stanford University) is well known for his analyses of Homer's traditional style, having published papers that continue the kind of close philological scrutiny associated with Milman Parry's original work. He has written on aspects of phraseology, type-scenes, and the tension between convention and individuality in the Iliad

Tackling the Toolkit. Plotting Poetry through Computational Literary Studies

In Tackling the Toolkit, we focus on the methodological innovations, challenges, obstacles and even shortcomings associated with applying quantitative methods to poetry specifically and poetics more broadly. Using tools including natural language processing, web ontologies, similarity detection devices and machine learning, our contributors explore not only metres, stanzas, stresses and rhythms but also genres, subgenres, lexical material and cognitive processes. Whether they are testing old theories and laws, making complex concepts machine-readable or developing new lines of textual analysis, their works challenge standard descriptions of norms and variations

Annotated bibliography of works by John Miles Foley

Compiled by R. Scott Garne

Opening new patterns from new disorders: a computational analysis of the poetry of Louis MacNeice

Modern and Contemporary Studie

‘To Catch the Song’: Word-Setting, Creative Collaboration, and the Reader-Listener in Handel’s English-Language Works

George Frideric Handel’s English-language works were immensely popular with the eighteenth-century public, and many remain staples of concert repertoire today. Important research exists on the philosophical import of the texts for these works, and on the oratorio-listener as reader, but it focusses on a small part of the composer’s English output, while musico-linguistic analysts have neglected eighteenth-century English music in general. Addressing these understudied areas, the aim of this thesis is two-fold. First, to apply recent models of musico-linguistic analysis to Handel’s English output as a whole, in combination with aesthetic commentary of the period. Secondly, to investigate the dissemination of these libretti as wordbooks without music, published copies independent of musical scores, and other sources offering the text a potential for appreciation parallel to (or separate from) music. When writing texts for Handel, what decisions did poets make regarding verse form, rhyme scheme, and metre? What input did the composer have in this process? How did his music reflect the formal nuances of the finished libretto? Musico-linguistic analysis offers new perspectives on such issues, illuminating the deeply collaborative nature of these works. Furthermore, while Handel’s English word-setting is often criticised for unidiomatic prosody, I explore counterintuitive stressing as a fruitful tension between musical and verbal communication. Handel’s librettists are frequently dismissed as mediocre poets, merely providing frameworks for music. I argue that audiences’ engagement with the published texts of Handel’s English works formed a more integral part of their musical experience than has previously been acknowledged. Through the concept of reader-listenership, I explore the literate nature of eighteenthcentury music-consumption, including the reading of a libretto before and during its performance, of stage directions for a music-drama always intended to be unstaged, and of a poetic text whose formal and semantic implications could conflict with those realized in performance

The visual craft of Old English verse: 'mise-en-page' in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts

It is standard editorial practice to abstract Old English verse lines from the unlineated layout of their manuscript witnesses, and rearrange them as discrete metrical lines arranged vertically, broken by a medial space at the caesura. The ubiquity of this practice, and its correspondence with the graphic conventions of modern print editions more generally, may account for the widespread scholarly assumption that the unlineated mise-en-page of Old English verse in situ arises from its status as low-grade vernacular, with scribes lacking either the resources or the sophistication to apply Latinate standards of lineation to Old English texts. This thesis challenges such assumptions, proposing instead that an unlineated format was the preferred arrangement for Old English verse, and that vernacular mise-en-page is capable of conveying important structural, prosodic and semantic information about its texts. Chapter Two surveys the development of lineation in Anglo-Latin manuscripts, establishing a context for the subsequent writing of Old English verse. The chapter hypothesises that the different mise-en-page conventions for Latin and Old English reflects their distinct metrical structures. A study of inter-word spacing in Chapter 3 suggests that scribes may have been cognisant of metrical structures as they wrote, and that these structures influenced the process of writing. Chapters Four and Five move away from structural resonance between text and mise-en-page, towards aesthetic and semantic resonances. Chapter Four argues that a preference for dense, unlineated mise-en-page is grounded in the traditions of surface-design in vernacular art. Chapter Five shows a scribe arranging and ornamenting the elements of mise-en-page to highlight the narrative structure, textual allusiveness and esoteric theme of the text. The thesis concludes by reviewing the state of play in Old English textual editing with regards to manuscript features, giving some thoughts on how the findings of this thesis might speak to future editorial work

Using Singular Value Decomposition in Classics: Seeking Correlations in Horace, Juvenal and Persius against the Fragments of Lucilius

For the purpose of this dissertation, the hypothesis is posited that a programmatic correlation of the poems of Lucilius and the other Satirists reveals a detailed and dense level of intertextuality, especially in those poems which scholars already understand to allude to the genre\u27s inventor. In addition to those poems which are discussed in secondary literature, we have discovered other poems which correlate highly with the corpus of Lucilius, but have been largely ignored. To demonstrate this fact I have devised a method using Singular Value Decomposition. That method is able to discern this subtle intertextuality in both the texts in question as well as other Classical texts since our method is not language-specific. We have discerned Horace to be the most highly correlated to Lucilius, and further, poem 1.4 to be among the most highly correlated to Lucilius\u27 fragments. In the course of writing this dissertation we will examine other poems which are found to be highly correlated to discover what we hypothesized--if there is a subtle intertextuality which has been largely ignored. We will use what I term a \u27roving correlation\u27 on target poems to pinpoint dense intertextual areas

AIUCD 2022 - Proceedings

L’undicesima edizione del Convegno Nazionale dell’AIUCD-Associazione di Informatica Umanistica ha per titolo Culture digitali. Intersezioni: filosofia, arti, media. Nel titolo è presente, in maniera esplicita, la richiesta di una riflessione, metodologica e teorica, sull’interrelazione tra tecnologie digitali, scienze dell’informazione, discipline filosofiche, mondo delle arti e cultural studies