CONLOQVIVM

Ben Kovitz

02:59

Hey! What happened to Palizsche? She was great!

ktm5124

04:55

@Cerberus Interesting! I had not heard of him. Sounds like it's not uncommon for a leader to set up a court of sycophants. In fact, it may even be one of the many signs of a despot.

ktm5124

05:06

@JoonasIlmavirta I know little about classical music myself, but I once received some helpful pointers from someone else who listens a lot. The tip he gave me was to listen for the motifs. It helps to look them up online, or listen on your own and figure them out from home. Then you can see how they recur within a movement, sometimes in the form of variations.

I think that Beethoven is a good starting point. If you listen to the 2nd movement of his 7th symphony, and maybe research the movement as well, you will find that it consists of two themes: DA-dum-dum-DA-DA-DA-dum-dum-DA-DA. This gets paired with a second theme, a longer and more melodic one, and the two themes get passed around the orchestra, so that two different instrument groups are playing each at a time.

I use the words theme and motif interchangeably. In that same second movement, which I describe above, the pairing of the two themes eventually segues into a different melody, and then the movement returns to the two themes, but this time, in the form of variations. In this way Beethoven creates a beautiful movement out of two simple building blocks. Often the building blocks themselves are surpassingly simple.

Here's a version that I know and love, with one of the world's most famous conductors. youtube.com/watch?v=ahvrHrPGi1k.

ktm5124

05:33

The second movement starts at 12:16, with the violins quietly playing the first theme, DA-dum-dum-DA-DA-DA-dum-dum-DA-DA. Then the second violins pick up the second theme, the longer melody. The two violin groups play in unison. The two themes get handed throughout the orchestra. It slowly gets more voluble. Then the tension subsides into a new, lighter melody. Tension returns. Variations on the two themes from the beginning. Starting with the longer melody. Then the shorter motif.

Tension climaxes. The whole orchestra plays DA-dum-dum-DA-DA. The third, light, airy melody that helped us transition earlier makes a return. The movement resolves harmonically. Each instrument plays the signature theme: DA-dum-dum-DA-DA. Ends at 21:00.

The first movement is great, too. Beethoven had a fondness for dance rhythms. The fourth is famous, much like the second. The fourth has been described as a Bacchanale.

MickG

16:26

I recently posted these two questions on Literature:

1) https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/2704/who-put-forward-this-completion-to-sappho-94-and-what-is-it-actually-supposed-t
2) https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/2721/about-sapphos-epigram-for-the-little-girl-aithopia-first-line-manuscript-trad

They haven't been answered yet. I was thinking of cross-posting over here to see if they would be answered. Would you be fine with this? Would I be more likely to get answers to those questions here?

Nathaniel

@MickG Hi MickG! Thanks for taking the trouble to try to work out the best way to handle this.

MickG

You're welcome :).

Nathaniel

In general cross posting is frowned upon, because people often do it in an abusive way, blasting a bunch of sites with the exact same question in order to get an immediate answer. Thankfully I don't see any of those tendencies in this case.

Joonas Ilmavirta

@MickG I think you have a good chance of getting an answer on this site, but of course I can give no guarantees. I know I couldn't answer.

Nathaniel

However, one thing to consider is that the two audiences of these two sites are different. Here, we have more language specialists. There, there are more literature specialists. So to make your questions more appropriate for each site, you might consider how to differentiate the question you ask here versus the one you asked on Lit.SE.

MickG

16:31

Side note: I did try Quora as well, but to no avail. The questions got marked as needing editing or needing to be in English. So I abandoned the idea of asking such questions there.
Other side note: the reason I'm posting these questions is that I recently opened a blog where I upload translations of poetry and songs from various languages into various languages.

Joonas Ilmavirta

I think cross posting is fine, under a couple of conditions: (1) You let the old question be around for at least a week or so. (2) You tailor the new question to the new audience, if possible, and include anything you learned from comments or partial answers from the other site. (3) You link the questions to each other so they are easy to find.

See also this meta post about cross posting. A score of +9 with no downvotes is about as close to a consensus you can get in our meta.

Nathaniel

I agree with Joonas. I don't know the extent to which #2 is possible, but if you are able to distinguish the questions (perhaps by making the one posted on Literature.SE more focused on the literature, or by making the one you post here more focused on the language, or both), that'd make it easier for each audience to help you.

To help motivate people to give answers, you can also consider starting a bounty on your question(s) (either here or on Literature). But unfortunately, it may be that there just isn't the right person around on either site to answer the question.

MickG

(continuing side note about blog) Those translations include translations into Latin, English and Italian of all of Sappho's extant fragments, complete with critical notations and critical notes. It is for the critical notes that I am asking those questions. If anyone is curious to check out my work on Sappho, for the moment there isn't much, but Hector and Andromacha is due tomorrow, and it has a huge critical note. Blog: michelegorini.blogspot.com. Enjoy :)!

Getting back to our issue. I don't quite know if I should change anything to "tailor the question to the new audience", and if anyt…

Turns out I'd already been linked to that post :).

@Nathaniel and @Joonas, any suggestions on possible changes to make the questions more "tailored to the audience" here?

Joonas Ilmavirta

@MickG I have very little knowledge on Greek or Sappho, so it's hard to tell. Perhaps someone with a more Greek education could chime in. @Cerberus?

MickG

One thing I could do (which doesn't count as tailoring though) is to avoid copypasting the "aknowledging a mistake" section in the epigram post and correcting the mistake up in the post instead.

Joonas Ilmavirta

16:46

I answered you in the meta thread. Not much new there, but I wanted it to be visible to meta users.

The questions seem to be of excellent quality, but perhaps somewhat lengthy. Dropping out something tangential is good if possible.

MickG

I guess the only thing that I could drop is the safopoemas quote in the question about Sappho 94. And maybe the pictures. The rest is all references that I feel should be included.

Joonas Ilmavirta

@MickG It's your call. Don't take any pressure to drop anything you feel necessary.

blagae

20:58

The problem with the type of question you've been asking is that you need someone with actual expertise on the domain you're interested in, and that the domain in question is very specific. So I would actually recommend cross-posting in your case, because you're basically looking for exactly the right audience in plausible (but not necessarily exactly right) places

What I've been thinking of doing, but haven't done yet, is posting a question I know few people could answer and then forwarding that link to people I know who would know these kind of people - because I've got a number of acquaintances in the larger domain of classical languages

so basically I was thinking to leverage my offline network by using the online StackExchange network, and if you have one, you might do that too

it would help you in the long run and also themselves if they have any quasi-unsolvable questions, and embolden the community that is being built here

Nathaniel

@blagae Nice idea! I like it.

blagae

thanks

I got the idea from a certain Latin question where an absolute expert academic from an Italian university (I don't remember his name, or the city) answered something that he was a worldwide authority on

Joonas Ilmavirta

21:14

@MickG See the idea by @blagae above.

blagae

21:29

[ ] <-- this is the box I am outside of

but of course, I cannot escape the constraints of the chatbox we are all in

MickG

22:12

Nice idea. If only I had such an offline network to "exploit' :). I will cross-post in a few days. Should I cross-post any other similar question I might wish to ask in the future?

Joonas Ilmavirta

22:23

@MickG You can cross post along the same guidelines in the future. But post first at the site that feels most appropriate, and only use the second site if you don't get a satisfactory answer.

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