A team of classicists is examining some newly discovered manuscripts

A team of classicists is examining some newly discovered manuscripts of ancient Greek lyric poetry, keeping in mind the following background information: Lyric poetry is a broad term used to describe the poems that were not epics or drama, and which were composed from roughly the 7th century BCE through the middle of the 5th century BCE.

The content of these poems spanned a wide range. While the Greck epics and tragedies dealt almost exclusively with the myths of Greece’s past, lyric poetry, though at times using a mythic background, kept its focus mostly on the present. Stylistically, lyric poetry had a wide variety, as well. Choral songs, such as eulogies, dithyrambs, dirges, and victory odes, were performed by a chorus and an accompanying instrument, usually on public occasions. Solo songs, also accompanied by an instrument, were typically of a more personal nature, with love as their chief subject. Alcaeus’ poetry provided a partial exception as solo songs go, for he also composed songs about politics as well as hymns to the gods.

Besides choral and solo songs, lyric poetry included elegiac and iambic poems, which may or may not have been performed to music. Elegiac poems are defined by meter, and the elegiac couplet, and were usually political or ethical exhortations. Iambic poems were usually polemics, or monologues of a satirical or salacious nature, often, but not always, composed in the iambic meter. Archilochus used iambics and trochaics for his poetry, whereas Hipponax was unique in his use of the choliambic meter.