L'usage du mythe chez les poètes éoliens

The archaic Greek poetry that was not epic was strongly pragmatic: its content was deeply linked with the occasion of the performance and its audience. Alcaeus fr. 298 V., Sappho fr. 16 and 17 V. are good examples of this: here the paradigmatic character of the myth and the heroic figures adapts itself to the audience and the circumstances of the poetic performance. The understanding of a myth frequently depends on elements that are out of the text, like the historical and social context that is contemporaneous with the performance. So, an audience different from the original one has difficulty in understanding a myth told by an archaic poem.