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Epic was the master-genre of the ancient world: it was central to group identity, education, literature, and culture. Yet modern understanding of ancient epic is not static, and scholarship over the last few decades has transformed the ways that we conceive of and understand the genre, introducing topics such as the role of women, the history of reception, and comparison with living analogues from oral tradition. A Companion to Ancient Epic presents for the first time a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of ancient Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman epic. It offers a multidisciplinary discussion of both long-standing ideas and newer perspectives. A key feature of the volume, designed to make the book as useful as possible, is the index of poems, poets, technical terms, important figures, and other relevant literary and artistic works. The Companion will be required reading for all students of ancient literature Introduction / John Miles Foley -- Epic as genre / Richard P. Martin -- The Indo-European context / Joshua T. Katz -- Epic and myth / Lowell Edmunds -- Performance / Minna Skafte Jensen -- Epic and history / Kurt A. Raaflaub -- The epic hero / Gregory Nagy -- The gods in epic, or, The divine economy / Bruce Louden -- Women in epic / Helene P. Foley -- Archaeological contexts / Susan Sherratt -- The physical media : tablet, scroll, codex / Michael W. Haslam -- Ancient reception / Robert Lamberton -- Translations / Richard Hamilton Armstrong -- Analogues : modern oral epics / John Miles Foley -- Comparative observations on the Near Eastern epic traditions / Jack M. Sasson -- Mesopotamian epic / Scott B. Noegel -- Epic in Ugaritic literature / N. Wyatt -- Hurrian/Hittite epic / Gary Beckman -- Persian/Iranian epic / Olga M. Davidson -- Hebrew epic / Susan Niditch -- Near Eastern connections / Walter Burkert -- Homer's Iliad / Mark W. Edwards -- Homer's Odyssey / Laura M. Slatkin -- Hesiod / Stephanie Nelson -- Epic cycle and fragments / Jonathan S. Burgess -- Apollonius of Rhodes / D.P. Nelis -- Quintus of Smyrna / Alan James -- Nonnus / Robert Shorrock -- Epic and other genres in the ancient Greek world / R. Scott Garner -- Homer's post-classical legacy / Casey Dué -- Origins and essence / Joseph Farrell -- Early republican epic / Sander M. Goldberg -- Lucretius / Monica R. Gale -- Virgil's Aeneid / Michael C.J. Putnam -- Ovid / Carole E. Newlands -- Lucan / Shadi Bartsch -- Valerius Flaccus / Andrew Zissos -- Statius / William J. Dominik -- Silius Italicus / Raymond D. Marks -- Claudian / Michael H. Barnes -- Latin Christian epics of late antiquity / Dennis E. Trout -- Epic and other genres / R. Jenkyns -- Virgil's post-classical legacy / Craig Kallendorf.
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