Ritornell and Episodic Composition in Empedocles

Abstract

Empedocles made use of two typical features of hexameter composition: Ritornellkomposition and episodic composition. By repeating lines in non-linear and non-circular patterns, Empedocles organized the episodes that made up his poem and invited his audience to reconstruct the relationship between them. Differences within repeated lines are not just variations but significant linguistic elements that determine the meaning: whereas the notion of repetition is misleading because it is vague and puts too much emphasis on similitude, a model that combines the notion of Ritornell with that of episodic composition allows us to apprehend more fully the meaning of the poetic organization of the material.