The Resurrection of Homer in Imperial Greek Epic
Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica and the Poetics of Impersonation

Provides the first literary and cultural-historical analysis of the most important third-century Greek epic, Quintus' Posthomerica.

Emma Greensmith (Author)

9781108820653, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 March 2022

400 pages, 1 b/w illus.
22.7 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.592 kg

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.

Preface
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Beginning again (introduction): the poetics of impersonation
Part I. Quintus as Homer: Illusion and Imitation: 1. Enlarging the space: imperial doubleness, fixity, expansion
2. Writing homer: language, composition and style
Part II. Quintus as Quintus: Antagonism and Assimilation: 3. When homer quotes callimachus: the proem (not) in the middle
4. Selective memory and iliadic revision
5. Prodigal poetics: filiation and succession
6. Temporality and the homeric not yet
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]