The creation of the Ancient Greek epic cycle

Abstract

Todorov's description of textual interdependence represents a fictional construct or web of narrative that certain critics attempt to identify and analyze.1 In a sense, this type of critic involves herself or himself in a constant pursuit of the lost paradise of a pure and unified text. Ancient Greek literature, however, provides us with access to a narrative tradition that approximates this single text: the oral tradition of which the Iliad and the Odyssey are the most prominent remains. We also possess in much more fragmentary form other narratives that belonged to the oral epic tradition; these comprise the epic cycle. In this paper I will examine the fall from narrative grace that the creation of the fixed texts of the Iliad and the Odyssey imposed upon the unified and universalizing oral tradition of the epic cycle.Not