The Greek Epic Cycle and its Ancient Reception

A thorough introduction to these important, but fragmentary, early Greek narrative poems so crucial for understanding Homer and Greek mythology.

Introduction: Kyklos, Epic Cycle, and Cyclic poetry Marco Fantuzzi and Christos Tsagalis; Part I. Approaches to the Epic Cycle: 1. Coming adrift: the limits of reconstruction of the Cyclic poems Jonathan Burgess; 2. Oral traditions, written texts, and questions of authorship Gregory Nagy; 3. The Epic Cycle and oral tradition John M. Foley and Justin Arft; 4. The formation of the Epic Cycle Martin L. West; 5. Motif- and source-research: neoanalysis, Homeric and cyclic epic Wolfgang Kullmann; 6. Meta-cyclic epic and Homeric poetry Margalit Finkelberg; 7. Language and meter of the Epic Cycle Alberto Bernabé; 8. Narrative techniques in the Epic Cycle Antonios Rengakos; 9. Wit and irony in the Epic Cycle David Konstan; 10. The Trojan war in early Greek art Thomas H. Carpenter; Part II. Epics: 11. Theogony Gianbattista D'alessio; 12. Oedipodea Ettore Cingano; 13. Thebaid José B. Torres-Guerra; 14. Epigonoi Ettore Cingano; 15. Alcmeonis Andrea Debiasi; 16. Cypria Bruno Currie; 17. Aethiopis Antonios Rengakos; 18. Ilias parva Adrian Kelly; 19. Iliou persis Patrick Finglass; 20. Nostoi Georg Danek; 21. Telegony Christos Tsagalis; Part III. Fortune of the Epic Cycle: 22. The aesthetics of sequentiality and its discontents Marco Fantuzzi; 23. The Epic Cycle, Stesichorus, and Ibycus Maria Noussia-Fantuzzi; 24. Pindar's cycle Ian Rutherford; 25. Tragedy and the Epic Cycle Alan Sommerstein; 26. The Hellenistic reception of the Epic Cycle Evina Sistakou; 27. Running rings round Troy: recycling the 'epic circle' in Hellenistic and Roman art Michael Squire; 28. Virgil and the Epic Cycle Ursula Gärtner; 29. Ovid and the Epic Cycle Gianpiero Rosati; 30. Statius' Achilleid and the Cypria Charles McNelis; 31. The Epic Cycle and the ancient novel David F. Elmer; 32. The Epic Cycle and Imperial Greek epic Silvio Bär and Manuel Baumbach.