This book offers a radically new reading of Quintus' Posthomerica, the first account to combine a literary and cultural-historical understanding of what is the most important Greek epic written at the height of the Roman Empire. In Emma Greensmith's ground-breaking analysis, Quintus emerges as a key poet in the history of epic and of Homeric reception. Writing as if he is Homer himself, and occupying the space between the Iliad and the Odyssey, Quintus constructs a new 'poetics of the interval'. At all levels, from its philology to its plotting, the Posthomerica manipulates the language of affiliation, succession and repetition not just to articulate its own position within the inherited epic tradition but also to contribute to the literary and identity politics of imperial society. This book changes how we understand the role of epic and Homer in Greco-Roman culture - and completely re-evaluates Quintus' status as a poet.
Author(s): Emma Greensmith
Series: Greek Culture in the Roman World
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 380
City: Cambridge
Cover
Half-title
Series information
Title page
Copyright information
Dedication
Contents
List of
Figures
Acknowledgements
Editions, Translations and Abbreviations
Chapter 1 Beginning Again (Introduction): The Poetics of Impersonation
1.1 Prologue: Still Homer?
1.2 Opposition in Imitation
1.3 Silver Latin, Imperial Greek?
1.4 Homeric Poetics at the Dawn of Christianity
1.5 Silver Latin ≠ Imperial Greek?
1.6 (Non) Parallels: Poetic Impersonation
1.7 Homer and the Performance of the Past
1.8 (Post) Latourian Quintus
1.9 Structure, Scope and Sources
1.10 Terms of Engagement: 'Intertextuality', 'Theory', 'Metapoetics'
Part I Quintus as Homer: Illusion and Imitation
Chapter 2 Enlarging the Space: Imperial Doubleness, Fixity, Expansion
2.1 Being and Not Being
2.2 Declamation: What Demosthenes Would Have Said
2.3 The Progymnasmata: Practising Expansion
2.4 Homeric Performance: Scripts and Spoofs
2.5 Quintus' Homeric Performance: Songs within the Song
2.6 Conclusions
Chapter 3 Writing Homer: Language, Composition and Style
3.1 Introduction: Omerico Ma (Non) Troppo?
3.2 Language and Formulae
Language
Homeric Rarities
Neologisms
Formulae and Epithets
Variety of Epithets
'Generic' Epithets
3.3 Gnomai and Similes
Gnomai
Similes
3.4 Conclusions
Part II Quintus as Quintus: Antagonism and Assimilation
Chapter 4 When Homer Quotes Callimachus: The Proem (not) in the Middle
4.1 Introduction: Quintus' Quale
4.2 Imperial Greek Epic and Callimachus: Locating the Slender Muse
4.3 One Continuous Song
4.4 Muses and Knowledge
4.5 Youth
4.6 Topography and Grandeur
4.7 Tending Famous Sheep
4.8 Conclusions: Declassifying Quintus
Chapter 5 Selective Memory and Iliadic Revision
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Selective Memory and Poetic Selectivity
5.3 Reported Memories: Homer et cetera
5.4 Memories in Speech: Self-Motivated Selections
5.5 Conclusions
Chapter 6 Prodigal Poetics: Filiation and Succession
6.1 The Ever-Present Anxiety?
6.2 Epic Ecology: Quintus' Successional Space
6.3 Antagonising Antagonism
Opening Contenders: Penthesilea, Achilles, Ajax
Memnon and Achilles: Flyting against Filiation
Eurypylus: Grandpaternal Poetics
6.4 Alternative Relations: Succession through Impersonation
Armour and the Mimetic Double
Filial Speech: against 'Source Citation'
Necromancy and Filial Possession
Wayward Athena: Concluding Succession
6.5 Conclusions
Chapter 7 Temporality and the Homeric Not Yet
7.1 Imperial Timing
7.2 Pacing: Acceleration and Delay
7.3 Straining: Plot Control and the Counterfactual
7.4 Bending: Anachrony and Prolepsis
7.5 Unravelling . . . or Un-ending
7.6 Final Conclusions
Bibliography
Index Locorum for Resurrection of Homer
Subject index for Resurrection of Homer
