PAST FUTURE AND PRESENT PAST: TEMPORAL DEIXIS IN GREEK ARCHAIC LYRIC

A common assumption in recent criticism is that deictic reference in archaic Greek lyric (which was usually composed for an oral performance) should always be analyzed in relation to the place and time of the performance and to the persons of the performers, just as in ordinary face-to-face communication. In the first sections of this paper, Giovann Battista D'Alessio argues, focusing on temporal deixis and using comparative evidence, that this is not always the case, and that, on the contrary, the texts often emphasize the gap between the moment of composition and that of the performance, which can be projected into the future. In the final part, he examines some cases in which the past time of myth is re-enacted in the ritual present through texts whose deictic references merge both temporal levels together.