Ancient Epic

King, Katherine Callen

Blackwell Introductions to the Classical World

1. Edition February 2012
218 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd

ISBN: 978-1-118-25534-6

John Wiley & Sons

Short Description

Ancient epics remain a fount of inspiration for poets, dramatists, and musicians not only because they tell good stories in an aesthetically beautiful way, but also because they speak to contemporary hearts and minds still wrestling with timeless issues of human limitation, passion, violence, and uses and abuses of power. This book discusses six major epics across the Homeric and Roman traditions, situating each poem in its historical context and providing helpful interpretations, a detailed timeline, suggestions for further readings, and an appendix of the Olympian gods and their Akkadian counterparts.

Further versions

Ancient Epic offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to six of the greatest ancient epics - Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Vergil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Apollonius of Rhodes' Agonautica.
* Provides an accessible introduction to the ancient epic
* Offers interpretive analyses of poems within a comprehensive historical context
* Includes a detailed timeline, suggestions for further readings, and an appendix of the Olympian gods and their Akkadian counterparts

Chronologies viii

Map x

Introduction 1

1 The Epic of Gilgamesh 14

2 The Context of Homeric Epic 33

3 The Iliad 52

4 The Odyssey 81

5 The Argonautika of Apollonios of Rhodes 106

6 The Context of Roman Epic 125

7 The Aeneid of Virgil 143

8 The Metamorphoses of Ovid 172

Appendix: Chart of Olympian Gods and their Akkadian Counterparts 189

Glossary of Greek and Latin terms 192

Index 193

Katherine Callen King is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles.

K. C. King, University of California, Los Angeles, USA