Corinna

On the left, a line drawing of the head of a woman facing forward, eyes looking up and to the left; on the right, a line drawing of the same woman in profile, looking left towards the first head
Two sketches of Corinna by William Blake, from his series Visionary Heads

Corinna (Ancient Greek: Κόριννα Korinna) was an ancient Greek lyric poet from Tanagra in Boeotia. Although ancient testimonia say that she was a contemporary of Pindar, modern scholars are divided on the accuracy of this tradition, and some claim that she is more likely to be from the Hellenistic period. Though her poetry is of interest as one of the few preserved female poets from ancient Greece, it is generally regarded poorly by modern critics.

Life

Corinna was from Tanagra in Boeotia,[1] the daughter – according to the Suda – of Acheloodorus and Procratia.[2] According to ancient tradition, she lived during the 5th century BC.[3] She was supposed to have been a contemporary of Pindar, either having taught him,[lower-alpha 1] or been a fellow-pupil of Myrtis of Anthedon with Pindar.[lower-alpha 2][4] Corinna was said to have competed with Pindar, defeating him in at least one competition, though some sources claim five.[lower-alpha 3][4]

However, from the early twentieth century, scholars have been divided over the accuracy of the traditional chronology of Corinna's life.[5] As early as 1930, Edgar Lobel argued that the language used in Corinna's surviving poetry seems to favour a later date than tradition suggests,[6] and that there is no reason to believe that Corinna significantly predated the mid-fourth century BC, the point at which the orthography preserved in the Berlin Papyrus of Corinna's poetry began to be used.[7] More recently, M. L. West has argued for dating Corinna to the late-third century BC, and W. J. Henderson supports a middle-ground, between West's very late and the traditional early date.[5] Other scholars such as Archibald Allen and Jiri Frel argue for the accuracy of the traditional date,[8] writing that a Hellenistic Corinna as argued for by West would be "astonishing".[9]

Poetry

Corinna, like Pindar, wrote choral lyric poetry – as demonstrated by her invocation of Terpsichore, the Muse of dance and chorus, in one of her fragments.[10] According to the Suda, she wrote five books of poetry.[11] Derek Collins writes that "the most distinctive feature of Corinna's poetry is her mythological innovation",[12] and one ancient story says that Corinna considered that myth was the proper subject for poetry, rebuking Pindar for not paying sufficient attention to it.[lower-alpha 4][13] Corinna's poetry concentrates on local legends,[14] with poems about Orion, Oedipus, and the Seven Against Thebes.[15] Corinna wrote in the Boeotian dialect, possibly to convey her local pride and patriotism.[12] Her Orestes[lower-alpha 5] is possibly an exception to her focus on Boeotian legends.[11]

42 fragments of Corinna's poetry survive, though no complete poems of hers are known.[16] The three most substantial fragments are preserved on pieces of papyrus discovered in Hermopolis and Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, dating to the second century AD;[lower-alpha 6] many of the shorter fragments survive in citations by grammarians interested in Corinna's Boeotian dialect.[16]

Marylin Skinner argues that Corinna's poetry is part of the tradition of "women's poetry" in ancient Greece, though it differs significantly from Sappho's conception of that genre.[18] She suggests that Corinna's songs were composed for performance by a chorus of young girls in religious festivals, and were related to the ancient genre of partheneia.[19] Skinner considers that although it was written by a woman, Corinna's poetry tells stories from a patriarchal perspective,[18] describing women's lives from a masculine perspective.[20]

Reception

Corinna seems to have been well-regarded by the people of ancient Tanagra, her hometown. Pausanias reports that there was a monument to her in the streets of the town – probably a statue – and a painting of her in the gymnasium.[21] In the early Roman Empire, Corinna's poetry was popular:[22] the earliest mention of Corinna is by the first century BC poet Antipater of Thessalonica, who includes her in his selection of nine "mortal muses".[23] However, modern critics have tended to dismiss it, considering it naive and shallow. Though her poetry is not well-regarded by critics, Corinna's work has been of interest to feminist literary historians, as one of the few extant examples of ancient Greek women's poetry.[24]

Notes

  1. ↑ As, for example, the vita metrica claims.
  2. ↑ As e.g. the Suda has it.
  3. ↑ Pausanias says once; Suda and Aelian five times.
  4. ↑ The story is told in Plutarch's On the Glory of the Athenians.
  5. ↑ fragment 690 in Denys Page's Poetae Melici Graeci
  6. ↑ PMG 654, which contains the "Contest of Helicon and Cithaeron" and "Daughters of Asopus" fragments comes from P.Berol. 284; PMG 655, the "Terpsichore" fragment, comes from P.Oxy. 2370.[17]

References

Works cited

  • Allen, Archibald; Frel, Jiri (1972). "A Date for Corinna". The Classical Journal. 68 (1). 
  • Campbell, D. A. (1992). Greek Lyric Poetry IV: Bacchylides, Corrina, and Others. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 
  • Collins, Derek (2006). "Corinna and Mythological Innovation". The Classical Quarterly. 56 (1). 
  • Lobel, Edgar (1930). "Corinna". Hermes. 65 (3). 
  • Plant, I. M. (2004). Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: an Anthology. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 
  • Skinner, Marylin B. (1983). "Corinna of Tanagra and her Audience". Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. 2 (1). 
  • Snyder, Jane McIntosh (1991). The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome. Carbondale: SIU Press. 
  • West, Martin L. (1990). "Dating Corinna". The Classical Quarterly. 40 (2). 

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