Apollonius’ ›Argonautica‹ and the Poetics of Controversy

Apollonius and the Poetics of Controversy is a literary study of Apollonius’ Argonautica against the backdrop of the contentious scholarly environment of the Alexandrian Library during its golden age.

Jackie Murray analyzes the epic as a sophisticated participant in the intellectual and scientific debates of the era, arguing that Apollonius deliberately engages with his contemporaries in literary, philosophical, astronomical, historical, and mythological controversies to establish his own epistemic authority as an epic poet and give weight to his radical version of the Argo’s voyage.

The study highlights how the Argonautica creates intellectual space for competing truth claims to coexist, transforming the epic from a vehicle for traditional storytelling into a stage for dynamic intellectual inquiry.

Ultimately, Jackie Murray argues that Apollonius redefines what it means for an epic to be truly "Homeric", i.e., to incite scholarly controversies.