Beyond Homer

In this paper, Tomos Evans will discuss Milton’s imaginative engagement in Paradise Lost Homer, Apollonius of Rhodes, and fragments of the Greek Epic Cycle. Through a careful re-evaluation of Milton’s Greek reading practices and his virtuoso scholarship, (illustrated by his in-depth study of a wide range of Homeric scholarship, especially the Byzantine commentators of Homer’s Odyssey as well as of Hellenistic epics), Tomos will explore the ways that Milton tackles with the poetic dilemmas and challenges of depicting the first, originary events of the most distant past: the beginnings of Christian history.

Time: 8 April 2022

Venue: 1088 Budapest, Múzeum körút 4. (Building F, Kerényi terem)