Overview

Ancient Greek literature begins with the epic verses of Homer. Epic then continued as a fundamental literary form throughout antiquity and the influence of the poems produced extends beyond antiquity and down to the present. This Companion presents a fresh and boundary-breaking account of the ancient Greek epic tradition. It includes wide-ranging close readings of epics from Homer to Nonnus, traces their dialogues with other modes such as ancient Mesopotamian poetry, Greek lyric and didactic writing, and explores their afterlives in Byzantium, early Christianity, modern fiction and cinema, and the identity politics of Greece and Turkey. Plot summaries are provided for those unfamiliar with individual poems. Drawing on cutting-edge new research in a number of fields, such as racecraft, geopolitics and the theory of emotions, the volume demonstrates the sustained and often surprising power of this renowned ancient genre, and sheds new light on its continued impact and relevance today.

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9781009087377

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EMMA GREENSMITH is Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St John's College. She specialises in imperial Greek literature, particularly epic poetics and religious culture. Her 2020 book, The Resurrection of Homer in Imperial Greek Epic offers a new reading of the role of epic and the reception of Homer in the Graeco-Roman world. She has co-edited a volume on the Posthomerica (2022) and is currently working on a new book entitled Homer and the Bible: Christian Greek Epic in Late Antiquity. She has written many articles and public engagement pieces on ancient Greek literature, and is also filming a documentary on Homer's Odyssey and its cultural legacy.

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