Talk:Epic Cycle

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[edit] 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)