Affect

The movement of sound across boundaries, and its ability to create extreme affect, is examined in Greek song and acoustic theory between Homer and the death of Euripides. Affect is defined after Brian Massumi and Deleuze and Guattari; auditory affect is shown to be central to the poetics of tragedy and to the psychology of perception in early Greek natural theory.

Prologue

All the sounds in ancient Greece, from Homer to the death of Euripides, are named and arranged by category and function. A soundscape, a list, an overwhelm.

Figures

Sound entered the enclosure of culture in Greek song and acoustic theory between Homer and the death of Euripides by means of figures, channels and openings where the outside was brought within. “Figure” is defined here after Donna Harraway’s work on companion species. This chapter examines a series of figures in Homer, Hesiod, Alcaeus, Bacchylides, and Aristophanes.

Capo

An introduction to the major themes and concerns of Greek auditory art. The argument is that Greek song and drama was concerned with bringing the sensation of sound within the enclosure of perception, at times against the categories central to Greek conceptions of culture. Greek auditory art’s engagement with sound is described as figure, as affect, and as melody.

Coda

A conclusion and overview of Dissonance. Greek song and drama was concerned with bringing the sensation of sound within the enclosure of perception, at times against the categories central to Greek conceptions of culture. Greek auditory art’s engagement with sound is described as figure, as affect, and as melody. These themes are illustrated through a reading of Euripides’ Bacchae.

Music

In the period between Homer and the death of Euripides, Greek music was an explicitly avant-garde tradition, openly exploring the poetic capacities of unsettling noise. This chapter traces the use of timbral sound and melodic complexity to create a musical aesthetics designed to unsettle; a discussion of the conservative reaction to this tradition is then juxtaposed with the musical aesthetics of Euripides and Timotheus