16 - Love, Desire and Erotics

Summary

This chapter treats love, desire and eroticism, arguing that eros and philotes serve as metapoetic structuring principles of epic narrative. It begins with a preliminary survey of the foundational texts, focusing on the scene of Helen at the loom as she weaves a tapestry of warriors in battle, essentially a figuration of the Iliad as an artistic product of sexual longing. The chapter then moves forward to consider how these same erotic structuring principles play out in imperial Greek epic, which absorbs Homer’s models through the filter of romantic fiction. Smith focuses on the first three books of Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica – the events surrounding Penthesileia, Memnon, and the death of Achilles – reading them as flirtatious manipulations that intensify readerly anticipation, and then turns to Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, specifically the tendril imagery in the Ampelos episode and its sequel, the romance of Calamus and Carpus. These episodes serve as exemplars of the regenerative powers of epic desire.