Elementi alt(r)i nel dettato della tragedia: riprese e divergenze dall’epica

It is well known that the Kunstsprache of Attic tragedy is Attic-based but, at the same time, rich in epic traits. Less investigated is the role played e contrario by the epic tradition, that is, instances in which tragedians deliberately made use of features of high-register poetry other than the epics in order to, inter alia, elevate the diction. Particularly interesting in this regard are some forms derived from lyric poetry that either recur more frequently than expected or in unexpected places. Several of these high-register, non-epic, and specifically lyric features deserve further investigation and are, in my view, likely attributable to a combination of causes, including factors that discouraged or even prevented the selection of the expected epic and/or epichoric variants. In what follows, I discuss the morpho-phonological and dialectal shape of the name of the goddess Athena in Attic tragedy as a particularly relevant case study of this phenomenon.