Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica: Engaging Homer in Late Antiquity (Mnemosyne Supplements, 343) - Hardcover

A Maciver, Calum

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9004230203 ISBN 13: 9789004230200

Publisher: Brill Academic Pub, 2012

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Calum A. Maciver, PhD (2009) in Classics, University of Edinburgh, is currently lecturer in Greek at the University of Leeds. He has published a number of articles on Later Greek Hexameter poetry, especially Quintus Smyrnaeus.

Review

"Maciver's book is to be commended for its methodological freshness, patient pursuit of intratextual parallels and his resourceful approach to Quintus' interaction with Homer, both unmediated and through the prisms of Callimachus, Virgil and the Homeric scholia, among others. It is a welcome addition to scholarship on imperial Greek epic and will particularly attract readers interested in the reception of Homer, Greek and Latin epic and late antique aesthetics." Laura Miguélez-Cavero in BMCR, 18.04.2013

"Insgesamt ist das Buch eine sehr anregende Lektüre. Durchgehend ist der Wunsch zu spüren, daß dem Gedicht die ihm gebührende Anerkennung erwiesen werde; hierzu hat Maciver sicherlich einen wertvollen Beitrag geleistet." Ursula Gärtner, Gnomon 87, 2015.

Edition details

• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 9004230203
• ISBN 13: 9789004230200
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224