The Use of Analepses and Prolepses in Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica

Abstract

Every Greek epic poet is involved in an Oedipal conflict with his overwhelming predecessor Homer. It is a fitting tribute to this fight that the ancient epic tradition ends with an author who, more than a millennium after the Iliad and the Odyssey have been composed, addresses their poet as “father Homer” (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 25.265: ἔμπνοον ἔγχος ἔχοντα καὶ ἀσπίδα πατρὸς ̔Ομήρου “holding the inspired lance and the shield of father Homer”)1, and it could be argued that Harold Bloom himself was just a belated misreader of Nonnus’ poetological play when he coined his term “anxiety of influence” with its theory of Oedipal struggles between strong poets and their predecessors.2 But while this conflict is an inevitable part of the epic genre, no Greek poet provoked comparison with Homer more blatantly than Quintus of Smyrna did: he was moving, as it were, on Homer’s home turf – the same mythical story, the same characters, in many cases even the same events as in the Homeric epics occur in his Posthomerica. We are entitled to wonder if he was particularly brave and clever or particularly stupid and ingenuous to pick this fight against an adversary so much greater than himself. Classical scholarship has given a quasi-unanimous answer to these questions.3 It is worthwhile to have a second look. The aspect of Quintus’ work that I want to explore in this paper is his use of prolepses and analepses.4 In the case of the Posthomerica, these two devices can be said to be prominent in a double function: (1) Both types of anachrony are a technique that Quintus inherited from his epic predecessors.5 As is well known, the Homeric epics do not begin the narration of their events ab ouo; instead, they take their audience in medias res and