The Greek Epic Cycle and its Ancient Reception: A Companion

by Marco Fantuzzi (Author), Marco Fantuzzi (Author)

New
Paperback
2019
$33.46

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.

Synopsis

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.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 694
Edition: New
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 24 Jan 2019
ISBN 10: 1108730264
ISBN 13: 9781108730266
Book Overview: Thorough introduction to these important, but fragmentary, early Greek narrative poems so crucial for understanding Homer and Greek mythology.

Media Reviews

'The book is beautifully produced in CUP's attractive wide-margin format. The footnotes contain helpfully abundant cross-referencing of chapters ... This is an excellent and important Companion that brings together, on an unprecedented scale for this material, clear and detailed summaries of the state of play in a notably complex field of scholarship.' Lyndsay Coo, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
'The book is beautifully produced in CUP's attractive wide-margin format. The footnotes contain helpfully abundant cross-referencing of chapters ... This is an excellent and important Companion that brings together, on an unprecedented scale for this material, clear and detailed summaries of the state of play in a notably complex field of scholarship.' Lyndsay Coo, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Author Bio

Marco Fantuzzi teaches Greek Literature as Visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York, and at the University of Macerata. His publications include Achilles in Love (2012), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (with R. Hunter, 2004), Ricerche su Apollonio Rodio: diacronie della dizione epica (1988), Bionis Smyrnaei Adonidis epitaphium (1985), Brill's Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (edited with T. Papanghelis, 2006), Struttura e storia dell'esametro greco (edited with R. Pretagostini, 1995-6) and forthcoming commentary on the Rhesus ascribed to Euripides. Among his present research interests are Greek tragedy, Hellenistic poetry, Greek and Latin metrics, and ancient literary criticism and scholarship. Christos Tsagalis is Professor of Greek at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His research interests encompass Homer, Hesiod, historiography, and the Greek epigram. His books include Epic Grief: Personal Laments in Homer's Iliad (2004), The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics (2008), Inscribing Sorrow: Fourth-Century Attic Funerary Epigrams (2008) and From Listeners to Viewers: Space in the Iliad (2012), as well as articles on Homer, Hesiod, Bacchylides, Herodotus, and Xenophon. He has edited, among other volumes, Brill's Companion to Hesiod (with F. Montanari and A. Rengakos, 2009), Homeric Hypertextuality (2010), a special issue of the journal Trends in Classics, and Theban Resonances in Homeric Epic (2014), a special issue of the journal Trends in Classics.