| This dissertation looks at the interplay between the poetic text and the circumstances of production in the performance of Greek cult hymns. Although it employ the evidence from various genres and performance occasions, including the Homeric, Orphic and dramatic hymns, the primarily focus is those hymns that were composed to accompany religious rituals and are fully integrated into a public cult event. These include the well-known fragmentary lyric works of Archaic and Classical poets such as Alcman and Pindar as well as inscribed hymns.;The investigation looks at the groups and individuals involved in the production of cult songs and show how their interests and goals helped shape the performed text. A key premise of the study is that no single function can explain the entire extant corpus of such hymns, but rather, in order to delineate a network of relevant stakeholders, each hymn must be considered in its own particular historical and performative contexts. The principal rhetorical-religious aim of a hymn is to praise a deity in an appropriate manner. One of the greatest challenges for an ancient hymnographer was to balance between this primary goal of a hymn and various other competing functions specific to the occasion. For this to be achieved, the text needed to employ the familiar form and language of Greek hymnodic tradition, allowing it to maintain a feeling of a genuine religious song. Yet this constraint left ample room for the poet to manipulate traditional material and generic forms in a manner that would reflect the interests of mortal stakeholders. It is this manipulation of traditional form to accommodate the specific circumstances---particularly the various stakeholders---of the particular hymnodic occasion that is the principal interest of this thesis. |
