The Idea of Epic PDF
Preview The Idea of Epic
EI D OS I Studies in Classical Kinds Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, General Editor I The Idea of Lyric Lyric Modes in Ancient and Modern Poetry W. R. Johnson II The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome Charles William Fornara III The Idea of Epic J. B. Hainsworth The Idea of EPIC The Idea of E P IC J. B. Hainsworth University of California Press Berkeley • Los Angeles • Oxford University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. Oxford, England © 1991 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hainsworth, J. B. (John Bryan) The idea of epic / J.B. Hainsworth. p. cm.—(Eidos) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-520-06814-9 (alk. paper) 1. Epic poetry, Classical—History and criticism. 1. Title. II. Series: Eidos (University of California Press) PA3022.E6H25 1991 883'.0109—dc20 90-10956 CIP Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Contents Preface I What Is an Epic? II Greek Primary Epic The Heroic Age and Heroic Poetry 11 Homeric Epic 24 After Homer 42 III Hellenistic Epic The Theory 46 Practice: Choerilus, Rhianus and Apollonius IV Roman Historical Epic V Virgil The Long Road to the Aeneid 88 The Aeneid 95 After Virgil 114 VI Lucan and the Flavian Epic The Bellum Civile 121 After Lucan 132 Contents The Form of Epic 138 Re-forming the Epic 138 After Milton 145 Notes 151 General Index 179 Index Locorum 187 Preface The exciting turmoils of three decades of revolution in criticism have left the classic texts much as they were: the canonical exemplars that continue to organize our Western concepts of literature. The idea of a literary form presupposes such exemplars, and for that reason for students of the literatures inspired by Graeco-Roman culture the exemplars continue to be worth examining. Of no genre is this truer than of the epic. Whatever else it may be—and to be successful it must be something besides—an epic has a certain form. To ask why a lyric poet sings may seem a silly question, but to ask why an epic poet chose to express his thought in thousands of verses is to pose a question that can only be answered from literary history. In these pages I have tried to describe the aspects of the classical epic that seemed to me to shape the literary thought of modern expo- nents of the genre. To read Paradise Lost is to realize how self-con- scious epic poetry is. There is no epic poem that does not confront its predecessors; the themes that recur in the epic—heroism, the nation, the faith—are evolving ideas; and the idea itself is cumu- lative, though to the end the Homeric foundation was never ob- scured. I have begun, therefore, at the beginning; Homer, Virgil, and Lucan are, naturally, the foci of attention, but other figures held in less regard deserve and have been given consideration. What their vii viii Preface modern successors made of the Homeric and Virgilian legacy is the subject of another book, and for a scholar with a greater expertise than mine. It is no more than hinted at here. Nor can 1 do more than speculate why the genre died. The reading of the great epics is a lesson in humility, in the face of their critics as well as the poets. The ideas of many colleagues are acknowledged in the notes; many others, such is the corpus of cur- rent scholarship, are unacknowledged since, I hope, they have be- come part of common thinking. This is especially true where valu- able criticism is published in languages other than English or may otherwise be inaccessible to many students. I have been greatly assisted by the officers and referees of the University of California Press, especially where I had written urbi rather than orbi; and I owe particular thanks to Professor Thomas G. Rosenmeyer of the Univer- sity of California, Berkeley. These are not easy times for classical studies in British universities, and its devotees have had to shoulder extra burdens and spend to their distraction much effort in the arena of politics. Professor Rosenmeyer's editorial patience has been inex- haustible. He changed my estimate of Apollonius, he read several drafts, and his ever-helpful advice and readiness to exchange ideas have been a great encouragement to me. Where my chapters fall short of his standards, the fault, I need not say, is mine. Oxford J. B. H. October 1989
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