Talk:Epic Cycle

Iliad and Odyssey not part of Trojan War cycle

The Iliad and the Odyssey are usually not considered part of the Epic Cycle. See the Griffin article in the references section, and Jonathan Burgess, The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle (Johns Hopkins, 1996). The poems of the Cycle are often considered post-Homeric, and to have been composed to tell the parts of the story of the war that Homer did not. Recently, Burgess and others have argued that the cyclic poems preserve traditions of the Trojan War that are as old as the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Some scholars include the Homeric poems with the Kypria, etc. as part of the cycle, but most scholars draw a contrast between the Homeric poems and the other Trojan War epics. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

There were cyclic versions of both the Iliad and Odyssey (the Homeric scholia cite alternate readings from them). In any case it is clear that in antiquity (i.e. BCE) the cycle as a whole included the Homeric epics; there's even a variant of the last line of the Iliad that joins the Aithiopis on to it. (It is of course very unlikely that the reverse is true -- that the Iliad and Odyssey would have been published in the context of the rest of the cycle.)

(BTW Neoanalysts -- i.e. about half of Homeric scholars -- would argue that the cyclic epics represent pre-Homeric material. By this they don't usually mean the epics themselves -- usually they mean the stories told in the cyclic epics. In the case of the Memnon story told in the Aithiopis, this is beyond doubt.)

Anyway, the upshot is that any discussion of the Epic Cycle has to include the Homeric epics, even if the reverse is rarely true. I think the article makes clear that the two groups of epics have different statuses and get treated differently, but if you feel that needs to be made still clearer go ahead.

One thing I strongly recommend avoiding: anything that rests on the assumption that the cyclic epics were inferior to Homer. As the article points out, there's no way to be sure of that, and the Iliad and Odyssey would also sound pretty silly if we only had summaries of them. Ancient sources could be quoted saying that they thought the cyclic epics were inferior, but the ancient sources are just as POV as Griffin. Petrouchka 05:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much about the "cyclic" versions of the Iliad/Odyssey, but I thought it was just a matter of the beginning and ending being different. Are there more extensive variants?

Anyway, I think it would be valuable to say a bit more about how the cyclic epics were composed to fit around the Iliad/Odyssey, and the alternate ending of the Iliad that links it to the Aithiopis. A few more sentences about Neoanalysis might be useful as well.

I agree that we shouldn't assume that the Cycle was inferior to Homer, but it might be nice to quote Aristotle's judgment on the matter. If I remember right Burgess echoes the text that you wrote, that "the Iliad and especially the Odyssey could sound just as fantastic if only brief summaries of them survived"--I'll look, and add a citation if that's true. The Iliad has talking horses and single combat between a man and a river, after all. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I've just come from adding new info about Proclus and Photius and the relationship between them and the summary, and alas, I now have to depart, but your suggestions are basically good ones. (1) There are two textual variants cited in the scholia, so no the differences are not big. (2) Unfortunately, almost nothing is known about how the cyclic epics came to be fitted around the Homeric ones. Burgess has strong views about how and when this happened, but they're not all that widely held; an article by Monro, a year later than the one cited in a reference I've just added, presents a completely different argument. Basically there are lots of theories but very little known for sure. (3) I may have had Burgess echoing in my head when I wrote that sentence you quote, so a reference would be a good idea -- though I think the sentiment is older. (4) I'd be content to see a reference to Aristotle too (provided it's qualified -- I suspect it's mainly the Kypria that he had in mind; the other cyclic epics have much more "unity" and were probably far better; and the Telegony to my mind shows signs of considerable literary affectation -- but that's treading a bit too closely to original research). Must dash, Petrouchka 06:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

All done. Maybe I can leave this article in peace now :-) Petrouchka 08:48, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

A BC/AD warrior

Spurious recent edit summaries aside, this article has used the BCE/CE convention consistently since the article was first expanded, 20:06, 22 June 2005. Editors with this on their Watchlist should ensure that "BC/AD" isn't forcibly intruded, contrary to Wikipedia MoS and common courtesy.--Wetman (talk) 12:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

This article has used the BCE/CE convention, but the recently created {{Trojan War}} infobox uses BC/AD. (The discussion that led to the creation of this infobox is at Talk:Trojan War.) So the page ends up showing two different dating systems. This doesn't bother me, since I think the difference between BCE/CE and BC/AD is merely cosmetic, but I can see how someone interested in consistency might be bothered. However, the Trojan War template is used in articles that have the BC/AD system, including Trojan War. So changing the template to BCE/CE will introduce inconsistencies in other articles. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Disinfoboxes are not encyclopedia text and follow no universal pattern that is to be applied to the actual text of articles here or anywhere. The template is not the article, nor was it intended— assuming good faith— as a Trojan horse to force "BC/AD" on Wikipedia text throughout, nor to insist on, to taker another example, American spellings. This instance is just one in this user's pattern. By the way, escalating recriminations on this heading may be viewed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard

--Wetman (talk) 13:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

At Template talk:Trojan War I have now suggested amending the template— though its usage is not actually the issue here— to read "BC[E]". That solves all "problems".--Wetman (talk) 13:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

No matter what happens with the template, I agree with Wetman that there is no need to make changes to the dating system of this article. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Wetman and Akhilleus that a difference of a single letter in the template date should not affect the longstanding dating convention in this article. I'll also leave fuller remarks at the template talk page. It's tempting to say that the Greece and Rome project should come down on the side of one dating convention or the other, but the problem with this should be obvious: some articles are under the aegis of both the G&R project and others that might have the opposite style preference. (Also, if I may, the Trojan War template is more of a navigation template pointing readers to related topics than an infobox; the top section is a bit of a compromise, and as a whole the template isn't meant to deliver info about a particular article.) Cynwolfe (talk) 14:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Based upon the above, I've restored the BCE/CE date era usage. Paul August ☎ 16:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Reception

"In more recent times it has been argued that the fantastic and magical content of the non-Homeric epics mark them as inferior."

That's the full current content of the section entitled "Reception."

It is supported by a single reference to a 1977 article. If that's what the article said, it would be ridiculous, and should not be used. For, let's not forget, the Cyclops, the Sirens, the visit to the land of the dead, all in The Odyssey. But the article doesn't say that. It makes a claim that The Iliad is unique in that it avoids the more supernatural explanations and tries to downplay the fantastic in The Odyssey (by arguing that a shape-shifting Thetis (Odyssey Bk 4) is more "appropriate" than a shape-shifting Nemesis (p. 41), but there is no attempt to say the Homeric poems are "superior" because they eschew the fantastic.

Even if the article did say that, why is this single article the only content which purports to cover the nearly 3 millennia since the "composition" of the Epic Cycle? If there is no there there, shouldn't the section be eliminated? Of course there is much more than this article. In fact in the first paragraph of the article is a quote: "enough and too much has been written about the Epic Cycle." If no one is willing to research what is available, this section, which purports to be part of an encyclopedic article should be jettisoned. AnthroMimus (talk) 04:11, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

I haven't read the cied article (J. Griffin 1977, "The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer", Journal of Hellenic Studies 97: 39–53), but I agree that the section "Reception" as it now stands ought to go. I'm going to remove it. Paul August ☎ 10:45, 30 July 2018 (UTC)