Apollonius' Argonautica and the Homeric Hymns

Apollonius represents a crucial link in the epic tradition spanning Homer and Vergil, but arrestingly, his epic Argonautica rather begins and ends in the style of a Homeric Hymn. This book contends that Apollonius thus frames his poem as an innovative synthesis of both branches of his Homeric inheritance: an "epic hymn" that simultaneously commemorates its protagonists' glorious deeds and venerates them in their religious capacity as divinized cult heroes. This study--the first-ever in-depth investigation of Apollonius' profound engagement with the hymnic Homer--promises to reorient scholarly understandings of the Argonautica's novel narrative strategies, its inclusive conception of heroism, and indeed, its very generic affiliations.