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Untimely Epic offers a new interpretation of time in Apollonius Rhodius'
Argonautica: rather than focusing predominantly on the structure of the narrative, it employs a range of theoretical concepts drawn from ancient and modern criticism to address how the poem shapes readers' experience of time and temporality.
List of contents
- Introduction
- I. Vocabularies
- II. Textual Performances
- III. Form and Fashioning
- IV. The Cosmic and the Momentary
- 1: Affecting Time
- I. The Text in Time
- I.1. New Beginnings
- I.2. Homer's Pasts
- I.3. Heracles and the Multitemporal
- II. Intertexts, Intentions, and Acknowledgement
- II.1. Metapoetics, Affect, Speculation
- II.2. Poetry and Philology
- II.3. Pensiveness
- II.4. The Life of the Author
- II.5. Exultation
- III. Conclusions
- 2: Untimely Performances
- I. Thynias: Epiphany, Song, Ritual
- I.1. Genre and Context
- I.2. Thematics and Exemplarity
- I.3. The Poetics of Presence
- II. The Heliades: Primordial Lament
- II.1. Primordial Sound
- II.2. Presence, Empathy, Finitude
- II.3. Multitemporality
- III. The Sirens Unheard: Time, Expressivity, Voicing
- III.1. Situating the Sirens
- III.2. Allusivity
- III.3. Soundscape, Meaning, Voice
- III.4. Voicing Untimeliness
- III.5. An Ethics of Absorption
- IV. Conclusions
- 3: Past Encounters
- I. A Gathering of Wisdom
- II. Dipsacus
- III. Archaeologies of Perception
- IV. Circe's Beasts, Orpheus' Cosmogony
- V. Between the Windows of the Sea
- V.1. Luminously Peopled
- V.2. The Facts Were Known
- VI. Reading Rituals
- VI.1. Dindymum
- VI.2. Idmon's Tomb
- VI.3. The Black Rock
- VI.4. Anaphe
- VII. The Hesperides
- VIII. Conclusions
- 4: Exemplarity, Ethics, Narrative
- I. Jason's Cloak
- I.1. Exemplifying Exemplarity
- I.2. Ecphrasis and the Universal
- I.3. Picturing Time
- II. Jason, Medea, and Ariadne
- II.1. Time Out of Joint
- II.2. The Colour of Stars
- II.3. Desire and Reflection
- II.4. Gesture
- II.5. Heavy Misfortunes
- III. Conclusions
- 5: Imagined Worlds
- I. Worlds Imagined
- II. Aeetes
- III. The Bulls
- IV. The Earthborn
- V. The Golden Fleece
- V.1. A Special Way of Being Afraid
- V.2. Answerable Style
- VI. Conclusions
- 6: Conclusion
About the author
Following graduate work at the University of Oxford, Tom Phillips was a Junior Research Fellow and then a Supernumerary Fellow at Merton College. He moved to the University of Manchester in September 2018 where he is currently Lecturer in Classical Literature. His research focuses on archaic and classical lyric, Hellenistic poetry, and ancient scholarly culture.
Summary
Untimely Epic offers a new interpretation of time in Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica: rather than focusing predominantly on the structure of the narrative, it employs a range of theoretical concepts drawn from ancient and modern criticism to address how the poem shapes readers' experience of time and temporality.
Additional text
This is a sensitive and thoroughly researched approach ... Phillips' readings of such passages are learned, sensitive to Apollonius' contexts, and compelling in their own right.
