Trojan War in Tradition of

Trojan War In Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle, Jonathan S. Burgess provides a detailed account of the poetry of Homer, and how that poetry was both influenced by, and influenced itself, the poetry since that time as well as the myths, truths and even exaggerations of the Trojan War.

Burgess uses a very analytical, scientific and detail oriented research in order to establish what he considers to be a very important argument regarding the Trojan War myths and how they have been expounded upon during the centuries since that time. The poetry Burgess especially focuses on is Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey. Tying these two poems in particular to the different cycles or eras that have occurred, seems to be the major theme of the book.

He makes the point, time and again, that there was an influence by Homeric poems on the Epic cycle, but that they were not quite as influential on the Archaic cycle. Burgess advances the theory that Homer was more influenced by oral texts to such a degree that he quoted from those texts in his poetry (pg 134).

The author writes, "In this study I have tried to situate the Trojan War poems of the Epic Cycle within the context of the tradition of the Trojan War, particularly in relation to the Homeric poems (pg 172). That manipulation of Homer's poems to justify his argument seems rather contrived to say the least.

Most literary experts would probably disagree with Burgess assertion that "we actually find little evidence of early Greek artists and poets being inspired by the Iliad or the Odyssey." (pg 173) One of the specific questions Burgess asks in his book is, 'was the sack of Troy true or was it a myth?' And he goes on to speculate that we know that there was a city sacked during that time, but that we have no way of knowing that it was actually Troy.

He pontificates that Epic Cycle poetry influenced by Homer first espoused that idea. On the other hand, he also states that Homer, who first began to compile his poetry during the early party of the Epic Cycle, could have been the one that was influenced by the stories being orally recounted at that time. As stated earlier, Burgess' writings were very scientific in nature, and naturally they read in a very scientific way.

The book is presented as a study of the makings of Homers poetry and how his poetry (especially Iliad and Odyssey) became known as the Epic Cycle genre. He states, "Indeed, eventually the whole genre of epic poetry became equated with Homer." (pg 130) The only problem that a reader might have with Burgess' work is that, even though it has a solid thesis, and a lot of supporting evidence, there seems to be little, if any, real purpose to the book.

In actuality, Jonathan could have probably started his book with a statement from page 33 that states, "Trojan War material found in the Epic Cycle has very old roots and continued to be used by poets and artists throughout antiquity" and would have made his point just as well as he did by including an additional 140 pages. The only interesting aspect of the entire book was the pictures and drawings scattered throughout the book that.