Chapter 5, Pindar: The Last Greek Aristocrat Summary and Analysis

This chapter is both an analysis of Pindar and an introduction to classical Greek poetry. The reader will instantly recall Hamilton's comments about the difficulty of reading Greek because of the amazing subtleties of the language. However, in this chapter, the reader is able to gain an understanding of how Greek poetry works.

With the caveat that Pindar is the most difficult to read and certainly the most difficult to translate of all the Athenian poets, Hamilton explains the beauty and perfection of Pindar's poetry through comparison with carefully selected English poets.

First, Pindar's poetry is characterized as "most like music" - but she is comparing it specifically to the kind of music that is carefully structured around attention to movement, symmetry and balance. She compares it to a Bach fugue...