Katerina Carvounis - Böcker

The Posthomerica, a Greek epic by Quintus of Smyrna believed to have been written in the third century AD, tells the story of the Trojan War beginning with the events immediately following the end of the narrative of the Iliad. Valued as one of the few surviving detailed poetic accounts of this period, Book 14, the final book of the poem, covers the events that take place the day after the sack of Troy, from Helen's return to Menelaus and the sacrifice of Polyxena, to the homeward journey of the victorious Greeks, which is abruptly interrupted by a divine storm. This detailed commentary divides the text of Posthomerica 14 into smaller narrative units, introducing each with an overview of the relevant literary tradition and a discussion of Quintus' possible direct models. There follows a line-by-line commentary addressing points of literary, stylistic, lexicographic, and textual-critical interest, and providing readers with a range of notes on background and vocabulary. The aim throughout is to illuminate the main features of Quintus' poetry and to offer as full an interpretation as possible of Posthomerica 14 within its literary context and in dialogue with the earlier tradition, in particular the diction, motifs, and narrative and literary techniques of the Homeric poems and the epic tradition more generally. For readers new to the Posthomerica, the volume also includes a thorough and up-to-date introduction offering an accessible overview of the poem's content, dates, context, models, and possible sources, including both the Epic Cycle and Latin literature.

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.