Apollonius’ ›Argonautica‹ and the Poetics of Controversy

Murray contends that a crucial but underappreciated difference between Homer and Apollonius is their relationship to scholarly controversy. Whereas both poets provoked scholarly controversies, Apollonius did so deliberately as part of an innovative Callimachean poetics. He fully embraced the stereotype of the quarrelsome Alexandrian grammatikos and participated in the contentious Alexandrian environment as a follower of Callimachus. Despite the restrictions epic placed on the scope of his personal voice, Apollonius successfully deployed the genre’s subtle strategies to engage in specific contemporary debates with the Argonautica. Thus, he imitated both Homer’s and Callimachus’ capacity for attracting controversy.