Odysseus the Roman: imperial temporality and the Posthomerica
This chapter offers a reformulation of the quaestio Latina for Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica, centred on the contentious issue of the poem’s level of engagement with Vergil’s Aeneid. Using a re-reading of two key passages of potential Vergilian intertextuality — Calchas’ prophecy about the future...
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| Formáid: | Book section |
| Teanga: | English |
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De Gruyter
2022
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| _version_ | 1826311365589991424 |
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| author | Greensmith, EM |
| author2 | Carvounus, K |
| author_facet | Carvounus, K Greensmith, EM |
| author_sort | Greensmith, EM |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This chapter offers a reformulation of the quaestio Latina for Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica, centred on the contentious issue of the poem’s level of engagement with Vergil’s Aeneid. Using a re-reading of two key passages of potential Vergilian intertextuality — Calchas’ prophecy about the future glory of Rome (PH 13.333–399), and the invention of the testudo battle formation (PH 11.358–396) — I argue that Quintus’ silence with regard to the Aeneid is a sign of deliberate distancing, which sheds light on the broader cultural poetics of his work. By delicately evoking in these episodes not Vergil’s Aeneid but rather Homer’s Odyssey, Quintus, I suggest, co-opts features of Vergilian epic and reabsorbs them into a Homeric dominant model. Through this process, Greek and Roman poetics, plots, and aetiologies are combined and synchronised, in a positive statement of Quintus’ position as a Homerising poet composing under Roman rule. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T08:07:13Z |
| format | Book section |
| id | oxford-uuid:d3d64c78-0a08-4175-bb6d-f32b1f66554f |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T08:07:13Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | De Gruyter |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:d3d64c78-0a08-4175-bb6d-f32b1f66554f2023-11-07T08:39:59ZOdysseus the Roman: imperial temporality and the PosthomericaBook sectionhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_1843uuid:d3d64c78-0a08-4175-bb6d-f32b1f66554fEnglishSymplectic ElementsDe Gruyter2022Greensmith, EMCarvounus, KPapaioannou, SScafoglio, GThis chapter offers a reformulation of the quaestio Latina for Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica, centred on the contentious issue of the poem’s level of engagement with Vergil’s Aeneid. Using a re-reading of two key passages of potential Vergilian intertextuality — Calchas’ prophecy about the future glory of Rome (PH 13.333–399), and the invention of the testudo battle formation (PH 11.358–396) — I argue that Quintus’ silence with regard to the Aeneid is a sign of deliberate distancing, which sheds light on the broader cultural poetics of his work. By delicately evoking in these episodes not Vergil’s Aeneid but rather Homer’s Odyssey, Quintus, I suggest, co-opts features of Vergilian epic and reabsorbs them into a Homeric dominant model. Through this process, Greek and Roman poetics, plots, and aetiologies are combined and synchronised, in a positive statement of Quintus’ position as a Homerising poet composing under Roman rule. |
| spellingShingle | Greensmith, EM Odysseus the Roman: imperial temporality and the Posthomerica |
| title | Odysseus the Roman: imperial temporality and the Posthomerica |
| title_full | Odysseus the Roman: imperial temporality and the Posthomerica |
| title_fullStr | Odysseus the Roman: imperial temporality and the Posthomerica |
| title_full_unstemmed | Odysseus the Roman: imperial temporality and the Posthomerica |
| title_short | Odysseus the Roman: imperial temporality and the Posthomerica |
| title_sort | odysseus the roman imperial temporality and the posthomerica |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT greensmithem odysseustheromanimperialtemporalityandtheposthomerica |