Device and Composition in the Greek Epic Cycle PDF Download

Author: Benjamin Sammons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190614846
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 273

View

Book Description
Benjamin Sammons argues that the poems of the so-called 'Epic Cycle' were constructed using the same traditional devices as the Homeric epics. From this insight he sheds new light on the overall form of these lost poems and offers fresh interpretation of the few remaining fragments

Author: Benjamin Sammons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190614854
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 320

View

Book Description
From a corpus of Greek epics known in antiquity as the "Epic Cycle," six poems dealt with the same Trojan War mythology as the Homeric poems. Though they are now lost, these poems were much read and much discussed in ancient times, not only for their content but for their mysterious relationship with the more famous works attributed to Homer. In Device and Composition in the Greek Epic Cycle, Benjamin Sammons shows that these lost poems belonged, compositionally, to essentially the same tradition as the Homeric poems. He demonstrates that various compositional devices well-known from the Homeric epics were also fundamental to the narrative construction of these later works. Yet while the "cyclic" poets constructed their works using the same traditional devices as Homer, they used these to different ends and with different results. Sammons argues that the essential difference between cyclic and Homeric poetry lies not in the fundamental building blocks from which they are constructed, but in the scale of these components relative to the overall construction of poems. This sheds important light on the early history of epic as a genre, since it is likely that these devices originally developed to provide large-scale structure to shorter poems and have been put to quite different use in the composition of the monumental Homeric epics. Along the way Sammons sheds new light on the overall form of lost cyclic epics and on the meaning and context of the few surviving verse fragments.

Author: Marco Fantuzzi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316298213
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 1206

View

Book Description
The poems of the Epic Cycle are assumed to be the reworking of myths and narratives which had their roots in an oral tradition predating that of many of the myths and narratives which took their present form in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The remains of these texts allow us to investigate diachronic aspects of epic diction as well as the extent of variation within it on the part of individual authors - two of the most important questions in modern research on archaic epic. They also help to illuminate the early history of Greek mythology. Access to the poems, however, has been thwarted by their current fragmentary state. This volume provides the scholarly community and graduate students with a thorough critical foundation for reading and interpreting them.

Author: Andrew Porter
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004455558
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

View

Book Description
How can the ancient relationship between Homer and the Epic Cycle be recovered? Using the most significant research in the field, Andrew Porter questions many ancient and modern assumptions and offers alternative perspectives better aligned with ancient epic performance realities and modern epic studies.

Author: Jonathan S. Burgess
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 080187890X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

View

Book Description
Presents a challenge to Homer's authority on the history and legends of the Trojan War, placing the Iliad and Odyssey in the larger context of the entire body of Greek epic poetry of the Archaic Age.

Author: Malcolm Davies
Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 108

View

Book Description
After Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey", poets of the seventh and sixth centuries BC composed epics which covered other parts of the Trojan War story or different areas of Greek mythology. Collectively these poems became known as 'The Epic Cycle'. This text provides an introduction to this cycle.

Author: Jonathan J. Price
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429656351
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 446

View

Book Description
This collection presents 19 interconnected studies on the language, history, exegesis, and cultural setting of Greek epic and dramatic poetic texts ("Text") and their afterlives ("Intertext") in Antiquity. Spanning texts from Hittite archives to Homer to Greek tragedy and comedy to Vergil to Celsus, the studies here were all written by friends and colleagues of Margalit Finkelberg who are experts in their particular fields, and who have all been influenced by her work. The papers offer close readings of individual lines and discussion of widespread cultural phenomena. Readers will encounter Hittite precedents to the Homeric poems, characters in ancient epic analysed by modern cognitive theory, the use of Homer in Christian polemic, tragic themes of love and murder, a history of the Sphinx, and more. Text and Intertext in Greek Epic and Drama offers a selection of fascinating essays exploring Greek epic, drama, and their reception and adaption by other ancient authors, and will be of interest to anyone working on Greek literature.

Author: Corinne Ondine Pache
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108663621
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 974

View

Book Description
From its ancient incarnation as a song to recent translations in modern languages, Homeric epic remains an abiding source of inspiration for both scholars and artists that transcends temporal and linguistic boundaries. The Cambridge Guide to Homer examines the influence and meaning of Homeric poetry from its earliest form as ancient Greek song to its current status in world literature, presenting the information in a synthetic manner that allows the reader to gain an understanding of the different strands of Homeric studies. The volume is structured around three main themes: Homeric Song and Text; the Homeric World, and Homer in the World. Each section starts with a series of 'macropedia' essays arranged thematically that are accompanied by shorter complementary 'micropedia' articles. The Cambridge Guide to Homer thus traces the many routes taken by Homeric epic in the ancient world and its continuing relevance in different periods and cultures.

Author: Margalit Finkelberg
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110671522
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 439

View

Book Description
This collection includes thirty scholarly essays on Homer and Greek epic poetry published by Margalit Finkelberg over the past three decades. The topics discussed reflect the author’s research interests and represent the main directions of her contribution to Homeric studies: Homer's language and diction, archaic Greek epic tradition, Homer's world and values, transmission and reception of the Homeric poems. The book gives special emphasis to some of the central issues in contemporary Homeric scholarship, such as oral-formulaic theory and the role of the individual poet; Neoanalysis and the character of the relationship between Homer and the tradition about the Trojan War; the multi-layered texture of the Homeric poems; the Homeric Question; the canonic status of the Iliad and the Odyssey in antiquity and modernity. All the articles are revised and updated. The book addresses both scholars and advanced students of Classics, as well as non-specialists interested in the Homeric poems and their journey through centuries.

Author: Thomas J. Nelson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009085905
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 459

View

Book Description
Challenging many established narratives of literary history, this book investigates how the earliest known Greek poets (seventh to fifth centuries BCE) signposted their debts to their predecessors and prior traditions – placing markers in their works for audiences to recognise (much like the 'Easter eggs' of modern cinema). Within antiquity, such signposting has often been considered the preserve of later literary cultures, closely linked with the development of libraries, literacy and writing. In this wide-ranging new study, Thomas Nelson shows that these devices were already deeply ingrained in oral archaic Greek poetry, deconstructing the artificial boundary between a supposedly 'primal' archaic literature and a supposedly 'sophisticated' book culture of Hellenistic Alexandria and Rome. In three interlocking case studies, he highlights how poets from Homer to Pindar employed the language of hearsay, memory and time to index their allusive relationships, as they variously embraced, reworked and challenged their inherited tradition.