Greek Epic Cycle

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Alberto Bernabé (Universidad Complutense)

Ed. by Vaios Liapis, Open University of Cyprus
The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

Domains

Literature Topic

Dates

Date of occurrence c.700- c.100

Places

Ancient Greece (Location)

Genres and Modes

Epic

1. The Epic Cycle

Of all Archaic Greek epics only two poems by Homer and two by Hesiod have survived in full. However, that era saw the creation of many other poems on greatly varied topics; they survive mainly in fragments or in late prose summaries.

The so-called Epic Cycle was a series of poems on heroic themes, particularly the large sagas that surpassed the limits of local poems and were composed independently by different authors at different times and in various places. Their common aim was either to fill out the gaps left in Homeric poems or to develop certain episodes that had only been suggested in the Iliad or the Odyssey. At a certain time, the custom of reciting some of them one after …

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2501 words

Citation: Bernabé, Alberto. "Greek Epic Cycle". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 August 2010 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=13865, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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