SOURCE: Burnett, Anne Pippin. “Art Songs.” In Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho, pp. 182-205. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983.

In the following essay, Burnett examines Alcaeus's art songs, proposing that in these, the poet uses myth to illuminate the larger issues of mankind.

There is one last set of Alcaic songs in which the singer, though he still stands among them, looks beyond his immediate companions to address an audience made up of men in general. These songs treat subjects like the efficacy of prayer or the disproportion of cause to effect, but their scale is miniature, their manner peculiarly Alcaic, and so it is in these, the ‘art songs’, that the poet is at once most available to moderns and most distinctively himself. In addition, he is at his most tranquil, as he sings these songs, for he does not press upon particular listeners, urging pride...