The Stories Of Similes In Greek And Roman Epic

Just as the story of an epic poem is woven from characters and plot, so too the individual similes within an epic create a unique simile world. Like any other story, it is peopled by individual characters, happenings, and experiences, such as the shepherd and his flocks, a storm at sea, or predators hunting prey. The simile world that complements the epic mythological story is re-imagined afresh in relation to the themes of each epic poem. As Deborah Beck argues in this stimulating book, over time a simile world takes shape across many poems composed over many centuries. This evolving landscape resembles the epic story world of battles, voyages, and heroes that comes into being through relationships among different epic poems. Epic narrative is woven from a warp of the mythological story world and a weft of the simile world. They are partners in creating the fabric of epic poetry.

From Homer to the moon, this volume explores the epic journey across space and time in the ancient world.

An examination of the aesthetic qualities of the Homeric simile

This book, an attempt to isolate and examine one aspect of Vergil's poetic technique in the Aeneid, is a result of pondering for several years with undergraduates and graduate students Rome's greatest epic. -- Preface.

Presents a history of ancient Greece and Rome as well as information about the literature and daily life of these early civilizations.