The Alexandra of Lycophron A Literary Study

This monograph is a literary study of Lycophron's Alexandra, whose obscurity, a quality notorious already in antiquity, has long hampered holistic approaches. Through a series of distinct but closely integrated literary studies of major aspects of the poem, including its style, its engagement with the traditions of epic and tragedy, and it's treatment of heroism and of the gods, the book explores the way the Alexandra reconfigures Greek mythology. In particular, as it is presented in Homeric epic and Athenian tragedy, in order to cast the Romans and their restoration of Trojan glory as the ultimate telos of history.

In this sense, the poem emerges as an important intermediary between Homeric epic and Latin poetry, particularly Vergil's Aeneid. By rewriting specific features of the epic and tragic traditions, the Alexandra denies to Greek heroes the glory that was the traditional compensation for their suffering, while at the same time attributing to Cassandra's Trojan family honours framed in the traditional language of Greek heroism. In this sense, the figure of Cassandra, a prophetess traditionally gifted with the power of foresight but denied credibility, self-reflexively serves as a vehicle for exploring the potentials and limitations of poetry.

Charles McNelis is an Associate Professor of Classics at Georgetown University. He has written articles on Greek and Latin literature, and is the author of Statius' Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War.

Alexander Sens is Markos and Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis Chair of Classics at Georgetown University. He specializes in the poetry of the late Classical and Hellenistic periods, and is the author of a series of editions of and commentaries on Greek poems, including most recently Asclepiades of Samos: Epigrams and Fragments.

1. Introduction
2. The Imagery of the Alexandra
3. "Like a Winged Runner": The Prologue and Epilogue of the Alexandra
4. The Structure of Cassandra's Prophecy
5. The Best of the Achaeans Redefined: Cassandra's Achilles
6. The Labors of Odysseus
7. Other Greek Heroes: Philoctetes, Diomedes, and Agamemnon
8. Tρώεσσιν ἀνάξει: Death and the Restoration Trojan Glory
9. The Divine Plan of the Alexandra: Justice, Peripateia, and Tragedy