Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception

Download or read book Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception written by Manuel Baumbach and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-03-20 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In classical scholarship of the past two centuries, the term “epyllion” was used to label short hexametric texts mainly ascribable to the Hellenistic period (Greek) or the Neoterics (Latin). Apart from their brevity, characteristics such as a predilection for episodic narration or female characters were regarded as typically “epyllic” features. However, in Antiquity itself, the texts we call “epyllia” were not considered a coherent genre, which seems to be an innovation of the late 18th century. The contributions in this book not only re-examine some important (and some lesser known) Greek and Latin primary texts, but also critically reconsider the theoretical discourses attached to it, and also sketch their literary and scholarly reception in the Byzantine and Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Modern Age.