lyric meters

This is just the contents of the last email I sent you but it struck me that it might turn out to be important at more than a practical level, so I thought I'd post it on the blog in order to make sure that it was included.

-o0o-

OK, I've done a bit of digging on the subject of metrical analysis and it turns out that there is a commentary on the Helen by Bill Allan, who teaches Classics at the University of Oxford. This was published in 2008 and reviewed in the Bryn Mawr Review in 2009. What's really interesting is that the review identifies metrical analysis as a particularly strong feature of Allan's commentary and uses his account of the very passage you are working on as an example of how perceptive he is:

Elucidation of lyric meters, and the connection of these meters to their literary context, is also a noteworthy and positive feature of Allan's commentary. Comprehensive metrical analysis is given at the start of each choral ode or exchange with a dramatis persona, along with a discussion of the content of the passage and its relationship to the play as a whole. For example, about the choral parodos at vv. 164-252, Allan identifies the iambo-trochaic exchange between Helen and the chorus as a "form of antiphonal lament which the fifth-century audience can relate to the antiphonal dirges...of their own mourning rituals" (166). Consistently and sensitively tying meter to context proves to be a valuable contribution both for scholars of the tragedy, and for newcomers to Euripidean lyric who may be yet unaware of the power and importance of these often difficult passages.

I've just ordered a second-hand copy of this through Amazon. I did think about having it sent direct to you but I'd quite like a copy myself for when i come to write about this stuff, so I thought I'd get a copy for myself and then I can tell you want he says about the relevant sections of the text.