La lengua de los ditirambos de Baquílides

Abstract

Bacchylides’ dithyrambs, mostly studied from a literary point of view, are the largestextant examples of this choral lyric genre, whose evolution towards the New Dithyrambstill raises many doubts. In order to define the poetic language of the Bacchylideandithyrambs, first of all, a linguistic study of several phonetical, morphological, syntacticaland lexical features is needed. Their subsequent classification shows that, despite thetraditional identification of choral lyric with Doric dialect, Ionicisms are the most abundantdialectalisms, usually mingled with archaisms and epicisms and some Atticisms too. Afterhaving observed how the poet profits from this linguistical diversity to portrait some characters, comparation with other lyric genres and with other dithyrambs in a fourth and fifth chapters reveals the importance of narrative devices in dithyramb and even its progressive approach to drama.