From Greek to English - some literary terms

Many of the words used by the ancient Greeks in the discussion of literature have descendants in contemporary English. In some cases the English word has precisely the same meaning as its Greek ancestor, in other cases there has been a (sometimes quite significant) change of meaning.

Some of these words have pages elsewhere in AWE – see, e.g., Eulogy - encomium - panegyric - paean, Palinode, Parody, Epigram, Epigraph, Epitome, Threnody, Epitaph, and Idyll. This page lists some more examples.

• Episode

The Greek word ἐπεισόδιον (epeisodion), the origin of the English episode, was used in the discussion of literature with the general meaning of an interlude, such as a subplot within the main plot or any passage which forms a unity in itself within the unity of the entire work. This was the way the word was used in the discussion of most forms of drama and of poetry generally, but the word had a different meaning in the context of tragedy, where it is applied to the passages of dialogue (in iambic pentameters) which come between two choric songs (see, e.g., Aristotle, Poetics 1452b20-21). Aristotle also (Poetics 1151b33-37) has the derived adjective ἐπεισοδιώδης (epeisodiōdes), which is used, as we use ‘episodic’, to criticise a literary work which lacks unity because made up of unrelated episodes.

The uses of the English word episode resemble to some extent, but are not identical with, those of ἐπεισόδιον (epeisodion). The most significant difference is that an episode may be an event or incident in the world, especially one which is seen as an element within a broader pattern of events or incidents: for example, epileptic seizures are sometimes referred to as episodes and, speaking of, e.g., a young child’s temper tantrums, one might say ‘We had another of his little episodes last night’. However, other uses of episode resemble the use of ἐπεισόδιον (epeisodion) in presupposing a literary or artistic context. Apart from its use as a technical term, when it is used in exactly the same way as ἐπεισόδιον (epeisodion), episode has come to mean simply a part or section of a literary or artistic creation, especially perhaps the different parts into which a serialised radio or television drama is divided (as in ‘Did you see last night’s episode of Coronation Street?’). Finally, episode is also used as a technical term in the discussion of music: in a fugue or rondo an episode is a passage which comes between and contrasts with two statements of the subject.

• Rhapsody

The Greek word ῥαψῳδία (rhapsōdia), of which the English rhapsody is almost a transliteration, was used of the recitation of epic poetry. (There is the related verb ῥαψῳδεῖν (rhapsodein), ‘to recite epic poetry’.) The noun ῥαψῳδία (rhapsōdia) was also used to refer to the epic poem itself or to a portion of it of a length suitable for recitation on a single occasion (e.g., a book of Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey).

The English rhapsody appears to preserve little or nothing of the meaning of its Greek ancestor. The word is used of a piece of music which has a loose structure and is highly emotional in character – e.g., Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies or Antonin Dvorak’s Slavonic Rhapsodies – and, analogously, of a literary work composed in an intense or elevated style. The word is also sometimes used of an expression of ecstatic enthusiasm.

A connection between the use of the Greek ῥαψῳδία (rhapsōdia) and the use of the English rhapsody is supplied by the etymology of the first part of ῥαψῳδία (rhapsōdia), which comes from the verb ῥάπτειν (rhaptein), ‘to stitch or sew together’. The Iliad and the Odyssey, like other Greek epics, were part of an oral tradition – they did not exist in written form until the 8th century BCE – and the rhapsodist, i.e., the reciter of epic poetry, would select and ‘stitch together’ different passages to suit the circumstances of a particular recital. Thus calling a musical composition a rhapsody would seem to draw attention to its loose structure, emphasising that it is made up of different sections ‘stitched together'.

• Dithyramb

The Greek word διθύραμβος (dithurambos), of which the English dithyramb is almost a transliteration, was the name of a type of passionate choral ode or hymn sung and danced in honour of the god Dionysus. Dithyrambs, which probably had their origins outside the Greek world, were first performed in Athens towards the end of the seventh century BCE, and acquired the structure of strophe and antistrophe characteristic of a Greek ode soon after 600 BCE, with choirs of men and boys performing dithyrambs at the Greek festivals. The form flourished in the final decades of the sixth and the first half of the fifth century, when poets of the stature of Simonides (?556-?468 BCE), Pindar (518-438 BCE), and Bacchylides (c.518-c.468 BCE) won prizes at the festivals for their dithyrambs. In the course of the fifth century greater value came to be placed on the music than on the words of a dithyramb, and the literary qualities of the form declined - though dithyrambs were still being written and performed in Athens several centuries later. Aristotle in his Poetics (4, 1449a9-15) says that it was from the dithyramb that Greek tragedy developed.

The English word dithyramb - pronounced with the stress on the first syllable and the final 'b' silent, IPA: / 'dɪ θɪ ræm/ - is used, in the discussion of Greek literature, in the same way as its Greek ancestor. In other contexts the word may be used metaphorically of any piece of writing, whether verse or prose, that is characterised by the passionate enthusiasm which was one of the features of a Greek dithyramb.

• Epithalamium

The Greek word ἐπιθαλάμιον (epithalamion) has entered English as epithalamion, a transliteration of the Greek, and as epithalamium, its Latin form, both words having the stress on the fourth syllable (IPA: /ˌɛ pɪ θə ˈleɪ mɪ ən orˌɛ pɪ θəˈleɪ mɪ əm/}}, and a plural ending in –a, epithalamia. In ancient Greece an ἐπιθαλάμιον (epithalamion) was a hymn or ode sung after a marriage ceremony by a group of young men and girls in front of the bridal chamber (The word ἐπιθαλάμιον (epithalamion) is a compound of the preposition, ἐπί (epi , at (the door)) and the noun θάλαμος (thalamos, room in the women’s quarters, bridal chamber) .) By the end of the sixth century, the epithalamion had also established itself as a literary form, with epithalamia composed in honour of, e.g., the imagined marriages of figures from Greek mythology: epithalamia were composed by such eminent poets as Stesichorus (630-555 BCE), Anacreon (582-485 BCE), and Pindar (519-438 BCE). Unfortunately an epithalamion by the poetess Sappho (630-570 BCE) has survived only in fragments (though it provided the model for an epithalamium by the Latin poet Catullus (c.84-c.54 BCE) in celebration of the imagined marriage of Peleus, king of Phthia, and the sea goddess, Thetis, the parents of the Greek hero, Achilles).). The epithalamion remained popular as a literary form throughout the classical period: in the third century BCE, for example, the Sicilian poet Theocritus (c300-after 260 BCE), famed for his pastoral idylls, composed an epithalamion (Idyll 18) for the imagined marriage of the Homeric hero Menelaus with Helen of Troy.

The epithalamium as a literary form entered English literature - as it did Italian and French literature – at the time of the Renaissance. Many of the poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, among them Ben Johnson (1572-1637) and John Donne (1572-1631), composed epithalamia, but possibly the most famous is that by Edmund Spenser (1552/3-1559), a pastoral epithalamium written for his bride, Elizabeth Boyle, on their wedding day in 1594.

There are also musical epithalamia. The Bridal Chorus in Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin is an example from the 19th century, while in the 20th century Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) composed an Epithalamium (for baritone and mixed chorus, flute, piano and strings), with texts taken from Edmund Spenser’s Epithalamium.

• Epyllion

An epyllion (plural epyllia; Greek ἑπὐλλιον/ἑπὐλλια)) is a short (c. 100-600 lines) poem of broadly epic type, later concerned increasingly with love and sometimes the erotic. The noun (pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, 'er-PILL-yen' IPA: /ə (or ɪ or ɜ) ˈpɪl ɪ ən/) is a diminutive of ἔπος (epos 'song' - see further Epic), meaning 'a little song [of epic character]'.

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