University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Doi
Abstract
This dissertation centers on Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica. My study expands the scope of more than a century of scholarship on Apollonius’ Homeric reception by exploring his engagement with the understudied but crucial model of the Homeric Hymns. Through a series of close readings informed by the theories of intertextuality and narratology, I reveal Apollonius’ poetic strategy of uniting the two streams of the Homeric hexameter tradition, the epics and hymns, into one innovative package, an epic hymn in honor of the Argonauts in their capacity as both mortal and divinized heroes. I argue that for Apollonius, the Homeric Hymns stood alongside the Iliad and Odyssey as an indispensable part of his Homeric inheritance and an equally authorizing model for his innovative poem. Part I of this study explores the Argonautica’s generic affiliations. Chapter 1 scrutinizes its beginning and ending, which, I argue, frame the poem as a hymn dedicated to the Argonauts as divinized cult heroes. Chapter 2 delves further into the poem’s portrayal of hero cult, which, my analysis shows, serves an important metapoetic function: the poem’s generic hybridity as an “epic hymn” is facilitated by the ambivalence of the Greek concept of the hero, who is at once the subject of epic memorializing and the object of religious veneration in cult, including in hymns. Part II of this study is narratological in nature, investigating the hymnic dimension of Apollonius’ complex narratorial persona. Chapter 3 focuses on narratorial techniques, such as overt intrusions into the narrative or loud displays of piety, that find “Homeric” precedent not in the Homeric epics, but in the Homeric Hymns. Chapter 4 examines instances of hymnody within Apollonius’ epic narrative. I detail the Apollonian narrator’s marked tendency to blend his own voice with that of his characters when they are invoking deities, thereby creating the impression that he is himself enthusiastically joining in his characters’ prayer or worship. I conclude by identifying avenues for future research and by reflecting on the significance of my study for two larger topics in Apollonian studies: the Argonautica’s fraught portrayal of heroism and its contextualization in Ptolemaic Egypt.Doctor of Philosoph
