David Bruce

From the "Iliad" to the "Odyssey": a Retelling in Prose of Quintus of Smyrna's "Posthomerica" David Bruce

Homer created the epic poems ""Iliad"" and ""Odyssey."" The "Iliad" tells only a small part of the story of the Trojan War. For example, the "Iliad" does not tell the story of the Trojan Horse although Homer knew about the Trojan Horse and assumed that his audience knew its story. Other, shorter epic poems that made up the Epic Cycle told the rest of the story of the Trojan War. The ""Iliad"" and the ""Odyssey"" have survived to the present time, but the other epic poems of the Epic Cycle have been lost since ancient times. Fortunately, Quintus of Smyrna wrote an epic poem that retold the tales recounted in the lost epic poems of the Epic Cycle. He told the story of the Trojan War from the end of the ""Iliad ""to when Odysseus sets sail for home in the "Odyssey" after Troy has fallen. In this retelling, as in all my retellings, I have tried to make the work of literature accessible to modern readers.