Music and Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds

Combines multiple theoretical perspectives and diverse media to examine the relation between music and memory in ancient Greece and Rome.

Lauren Curtis (Edited by), Naomi Weiss (Edited by)

9781108831666, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 October 2021

320 pages, 29 b/w illus.
23.3 x 15.6 x 2.6 cm, 0.67 kg

In Greek mythology, the Muses are Memory's daughters. Their genealogy suggests a deep connection between music and memory in Graeco-Roman culture, but how was this connection understood and experienced by ancient authors, artists, performers, and audiences? How is music remembered and how does it memorialize in a world before recording technology, where sound accumulated differently than it does today? This volume explores music's role in the discourses of cultural memory, communication, and commemoration in ancient Greek and Roman societies. It reveals the many and varied ways in which musical memory formed a fundamental part of social, cultural, ritual, and political life in ancient Greek- and Latin-speaking communities, from classical Athens to Ptolemaic Alexandria and ancient Rome. Drawing on the contributors' interdisciplinary expertise in art history, philology, performance studies, history, and ethnomusicology, eleven original chapters and the editors' Introduction offer new approaches for the study of Graeco-Roman music and musical culture.

Part I. Approaching Music and Memory: Introduction Lauren Curtis and Naomi Weiss
1. Music, Memory, and the (Ancient Greek) Imagination Mark Griffith
Part II. Music, Body, and Textual Archives: 2. Musical Memory on Delos: Theseus in the Archive and the Repertoire Sarah Olsen
3. Remembered but not Recorded: The Strange Case of Rome's Maiden Chorus Lauren Curtis
4. Incorporating Memory in Roman Song and Dance: The Case of the Arval Cult Zoa Alonso Fernández
Part III. Technologies of Musical Memory: 5. Do Alexandrians Dream of Electric Sound? Recording Music in the Early Ptolemaic Empire Yvona Trnka-Amrhein
6. Teichoacoustics, or the Wall as Sonic Medium in Antiquity Peter McMurray
Part IV. Audience, Music, and Repertoire: 7. Iacchus Resonatus: Sound, Memory, and Salvation in Aristophanes' Frogs Tim Power
8. Performance, Memory, and Affect: Animal Choruses in Attic Vase Painting Naomi Weiss
9. Meter, Music, and Memory in Roman Comedy Timothy J. Moore
Part V. Music and Memorialization: 10. Sirens on the Edge of the Classical Attic Funerary Monument Seth Estrin
11. Music as Mn?ma on Athenian White-Ground Lekythoi Sheramy D. Bundrick.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Music [AV], History of architecture [AMX], Architecture [AM], The arts [A]