Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica : engaging Homer in late antiquity / / by Calum Alasdair Maciver.

• Superior document: Mnemosyne : supplements : monographs on Greek and Latin language and literature, v. 343
• Author: Maciver, Calum Alasdair.
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum ; 343.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (232 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica (3rd century C.E.), the 14 book Greek epic on the Trojan War, is a text which has traditionally been overlooked in the main canon of Classical authors, and in fact until only recently has been largely ignored as a literary work. This book, the first monograph in English on the poem since 1904, examines the Posthomerica’s close relationship with the Homeric epics, with a focus on the originality and Late Antique interpretative bias of Quintus in his readings and emulation of Homer. The study deals specifically with three separate aspects of poetics, and their Homeric intertextuality: ecphrasis, gnomai, and similes, and their role within the poem’s narrative strategies, themes, and aims.

Table of Contents

Signs of the times: being Homer later -- Reading Quintus reading Homer -- A late antique aesthetic? -- (M)use-less singing: Quintus' art? -- Ecphrasis and the emblems of the past -- Reading directions in ecphrasis -- (Re-)reading the shield of Achilles -- Unfolding ecphrasis: the mountain of arete -- Speaking morality through gnomai -- Homeric voices? narrators and narratees -- Fate, gods, and the sayings of Nestor -- Posthomeric similes, Homeric likenesses -- Penthesileia: a new dawn -- Helen received, Helen judged -- Like father like son: comparing Neoptolemus.