Ancient Epic Poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil with a Chapter on the Gilgamesh Poems

330 Pages·2006·36.95 MB·English

by  Charles Rowan Beye

ANCIENT
EPIC
POETRY
C H A R L E S R O W A N BEYE
ANCIENT
EPIC
POETRY

ANCIENT
EPIC
POETRY
Homer, Apollonius, Virgil
With a Chapter on
the Gilgamesh Poems
CHARLES ROWAN BEYE
Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc.
Wauconda, Illinois USA
Updated Cover Design & Additional Typography
Adam Phillip Velez
Cover Illustration
John Flaxman
"Ulysses Weeps at the Song of Demodocus"
Ancient Epic Poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil
With a Chapter on the Gilgamesh Poems
Charles Rowan Beye
2006
© Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc.
1000
Brown Street
60084
Wauconda, IL USA
www.bolchazy.com
Printed in the United States of America
2006
by United Graphics
13 978 0 86516 607-3
ISBN- : - - -
10 0 86516 607-2
ISBN- : - -
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beye, Charles Rowan.
Ancient epic poetry : Homer, Apollonius, Virgil : with a chapter on the Gilgamesh poems
/ Charles Rowan Beye.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-86516-607-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-86516-607-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Epic poetry, Classical--History and criticism. 2. Aeneas (Legendary character) in
literature. 3. Argonauts (Greek mythology) in literature. 4. Achilles (Greek mythology)
in literature. 5. Odysseus (Greek mythology) in literature. 6. Homer—Criticism and
interpretation. 7. Virgil. Aeneis. 8. Apollonius, Rhodius. Argonautica. 9. Trojan War--
Literature and the war. 10. Oral-formulaic analysis. 11. Rhetoric, Ancient. I. Tide.
PA3022.E6B49 2005
809.1’32--dc22
2005032689
memory of
Mary Powers Beye

Contents
Preface to the Second Edition ix
1 Oral Poetry 1
2 The Poet's World 43
3 Poetic Technique 74
4
The Iliad 113
5
The Odyssey 144
6 The Argonautica 187
7
The Aeneid 219
Further Reading 257
8 · Gilgamesh 279
Further Reading Revisited 303
Index 311

Preface to the Second Edition
This is a reprint of the 1993 edition of Ancient Epic Poetry published by
Cornell University Press.
My publishers, Bolchazy-Carducci, have given me the opportunity to
add a chapter on the Sumerian-Akkadian story known most commonly
as "The Epic of Gilgamesh." The logistics of reprinting have dictated
that it be placed at the end after the other chapters. This seems to violate
the chronological arrangement of the discussion of the other four epic
poems, since the Gilgamesh story dates to the third millenium b.c.e. and
the surviving texts of the story to the second. Readers, therefore, may
wish to start with the Gilgamesh chapter. But its isolation makes sense
from another perspective; it has not yet been assimilated into a history
of western literature. While its obvious similarities to the Iliad and Odys­
sey make a connection of influence and continuity seem likely, even if
not provable, its brevity (3,000 lines to the Iliad's 16,000), its minimalist
style, in contrast to the Homeric elaboration of character, among other
things, inhibit the critic. Ten years ago I brought it into my discussion of
Homeric epic ever so briefly (see pp. 34-36). More recently when I wrote
the fictional Odysseus: a Life (Hyperion 2004), I used an idea I had once
heard from Albert Bates Lord as speculation, namely that details of the
stories Odysseus tells the Phaiacians which curiously parallel bits of
the Gilgamesh story (cf. p. 36) were the narrator's way of emphasizing