Open lecture "Pindarising for the Glory of the Lord"

Janika Päll has summarised the lecture as follows:

“Several Ancient Greek poets have claimed that they received their talent as a gift from Muses, among them Pindar, the lyric poet par excellence. During the Renaissance, when Pindar's poetry was rediscovered, new poets repeated this claim and based their fame on continuing his tradition, revitalising both the ancient Greek language in which his poetry was written, and the complex forms of his Odes. With some changes, this tradition has continued to the 21st century. But the rediscovery of Pindar also gave rise to a new tradition to write pindarising poems in Latin or different vernaculars (including verse translations).

The paper will give a brief overview of the recent discoveries in the field of Pindarica Nova, focusing on two main directions of research: the social developments which gave rise to (and reduced) this particular type of poetic activity and the expansion of ideas about sublimity and divine message of poetry.”

Janika Päll is the Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Tartu College of Foreign Languages and Cultures.