Cast In Later Grecian Mould Quintus Of Smyrna S Reception Of Homer In The Posthomerica

This dissertation examines the relationship between the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Quintus of Smyrna's Posthomerica, a 14-book epic of the third century CE. It argues that Quintus bridges the narratives of the Iliad and the Odyssey and redeploys Homeric style in order to re-activate the cultural power of Homer under the Roman Empire. The first chapter analyzes Quintus' depiction of the Muses. The ways in which the goddesses are represented encodes the contemporary conflict of constructing a Greek identity as panhellenic or epichoric in the language of the past. This demonstrates the Posthomerica's deep engagement with the position of Hellenism and its connection to the past. The lack of an opening invocation to the Muses is part of Quintus' strategy for tapping into Homeric power: he connects the Iliad with the Posthomerica but also respects the boundaries of the Homeric text. The second chapter explores how Quintus occasionally draws his audience's gaze away from the primary narrative of the heroic past and towards their own present. This is done through landscapes, a simile involving the arena, Odysseus' testudo maneuver, and Calchas' prophecy about the Roman empire. These passages fuse the two time-frames together, which implicates the past in the construction of the present. In the third chapter specific nodes of intertextuality between the Posthomerica and the Iliad/Odyssey are the primary focus. It is argued that the intertextual web is incomplete, and that the audience must engage their education (paideia) to fill in the narrative gaps. This engages them in creating a Hellenic identity from the narratives of the past with knowledge derived from the present. The fourth chapter contextualizes Quintus with other hexameter poets of the first through fourth centuries CE who treated the Trojan War narrative, including Nestor and Pisander of Laranda, Triphiodorus, and hexameter papyrus fragments.

This dissertation examines the relationship between the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Quintus of Smyrna's Posthomerica, a 14-book epic of the third century CE. It argues that Quintus bridges the narratives of the Iliad and the Odyssey and redeploys Homeric style in order to re-activate the cultural power of Homer under the Roman Empire. The first chapter analyzes Quintus' depiction of the Muses. The ways in which the goddesses are represented encodes the contemporary conflict of constructing a Greek identity as panhellenic or epichoric in the language of the past. This demonstrates the Posthomerica's deep engagement with the position of Hellenism and its connection to the past. The lack of an opening invocation to the Muses is part of Quintus' strategy for tapping into Homeric power: he connects the Iliad with the Posthomerica but also respects the boundaries of the Homeric text. The second chapter explores how Quintus occasionally draws his audience's gaze away from the primary narrative of the heroic past and towards their own present. This is done through landscapes, a simile involving the arena, Odysseus' testudo maneuver, and Calchas' prophecy about the Roman empire. These passages fuse the two time-frames together, which implicates the past in the construction of the present. In the third chapter specific nodes of intertextuality between the Posthomerica and the Iliad/Odyssey are the primary focus. It is argued that the intertextual web is incomplete, and that the audience must engage their education (paideia) to fill in the narrative gaps. This engages them in creating a Hellenic identity from the narratives of the past with knowledge derived from the present. The fourth chapter contextualizes Quintus with other hexameter poets of the first through fourth centuries CE who treated the Trojan War narrative, including Nestor and Pisander of Laranda, Triphiodorus, and hexameter papyrus fragments.

The volume offers an innovative and systematic exploration of the diverse ways in which Later Greek Epic interacts with the Latin literary tradition. Taking as a starting point the premise that it is probable for the Greek epic poets of the Late Antiquity to have been familiar with leading works of Latin poetry, either in the original or in translation, the contributions in this book pursue a new form of intertextuality, in which the leading epic poets of the Imperial era (Quintus of Smyrna, Triphiodorus, Nonnus, and the author of the Orphic Argonautica) engage with a range of models in inventive, complex, and often covert ways. Instead of asking, in other words, whether Greek authors used Latin models, we ask how they engaged with them and why they opted for certain choices and not for others. Through sophisticated discussions, it becomes clear that intertexts are usually systems that combine ideology, cultural traditions, and literary aesthetics in an inextricable fashion. The book will prove that Latin literature, far from being distinct from the Greek epic tradition of the imperial era, is an essential, indeed defining, component within a common literary and ideological heritage across the Roman empire.

Provides the first literary and cultural-historical analysis of the most important third-century Greek epic, Quintus' Posthomerica.

Composed in the third century A.D., the Trojan Epic is the earliest surviving literary evidence for many of the traditions of the Trojan War passed down from ancient Greece. Also known as the Posthomerica, or "sequel to Homer," the Trojan Epic chronicles the course of the war after the burial of Troy's greatest hero, Hektor. Quintus, believed to have been an educated Greek living in Roman Asia Minor, included some of the war's most legendary events: the death of Achilles, the Trojan Horse, and the destruction of Troy. But because Quintus deliberately imitated Homer's language and style, his work has been dismissed by many scholars as pastiche. A vivid and entertaining story in its own right, the Trojan Epic is also particularly significant for what it reveals about its sources—the much older, now lost Greek epics about the Trojan War known collectively as the Epic Cycle. Written in the Homeric era, these poems recounted events not included in the Iliad or the Odyssey. As Alan James makes clear in this vibrant and faithful new translation, Quintus's work deserves attention for its literary-historical importance and its narrative power. James's line-by-line verse translation in English reveals the original as an exciting and eloquent tale of gods and heroes, bravery and cunning, hubris and brutality. James includes a substantial introduction which places the work in its literary and historical context, a detailed and annotated book-by-book summary of the epic, a commentary dealing mainly with sources, and an explanatory index of proper names. Brilliantly revitalized by James, the Trojan Epic will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in Greek mythology and the legend of Troy.

Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica (3rd century C.E.), the 14 book Greek epic on the Trojan War, is a text which has traditionally been overlooked in the main canon of Classical authors, and in fact until only recently has been largely ignored as a literary work. This book, the first monograph in English on the poem since 1904, examines the Posthomerica’s close relationship with the Homeric epics, with a focus on the originality and Late Antique interpretative bias of Quintus in his readings and emulation of Homer. The study deals specifically with three separate aspects of poetics, and their Homeric intertextuality: ecphrasis, gnomai, and similes, and their role within the poem’s narrative strategies, themes, and aims.

An examination of ancient Greek drama, and its relationship to the society in which it was produced. By focusing on the ways in which the plays treat gender, ethnicity, and class, and on their theatrical conventions, Edith Hall offers an extended study of the Greek theatrical masterpieces within their original social context.

Demonstrates the centrality of chorality in the social, religious and technological practices of individuals and communities.