Author: QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS
Biography:
QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS (fl 3th century CE: OCD)
Following in the footsteps of Homer (q.v.), Quintus “of Smyrna” was a Greek poet who wrote an epic poem in fourteen books, the Posthomerica, filling in the gaps between the Iliad and the Odyssey. It includes such events as the exploits of Penthesileia, the death of Achilles, and the suicide of Ajax. The first printed edition appeared at Venice in 1504. Very little is known about Quintus himself. Even his dates are disputed, some authorities placing him in the fourth century CE. The name by which he is known comes from an internal reference in which he describes himself as a shepherd inspired by the Muses on a mountain near Smyrna, but that is understood to be a literary trope and not literal truth. He may have been the father of Dorotheus, a Christian epic poet of the fourth century. His translator in the Romantic period was Alexander Dyce (1798-1869), literary scholar and bibliophile, and the Select Translations here was his first book-length publication. He was born in Edinburgh on 30 June 1798, the eldest child of an officer of the Madras infantry, Alexander Dyce, and his wife Frederica Campbell. His parents left for India in 1799, leaving him in the care of two aunts. He was educated at the Edinburgh high school and at Exeter College, Oxford (matric. 1816, BA 1819), and then at his father’s insistence entered the church and held two curacies before gaining his financial independence about 1823 and moving to London to start his career as a pioneering literary editor. He was known particularly for his editions of “old dramatists” including Webster, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Shirley, and Beaumont and Fletcher. Dyce never married, but may have been in love with the writer Euphrasia Fanny Haworth (1802-83) whose collection of stories he edited: The Pine Tree Dell (1827). Their friendship may have influenced his impressive anthology Specimens of British Poetesses (1825, in this bibliography). Dyce died at his home on Oxford Terrace, Paddington, on 15 May 1869, and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery. He left property valued at under £25,000 and bequeathed his fine library to the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria and Albert) where it is preserved as the Dyce Collection. (OCD 12 June 2025; Hervey; “Quintus Smyrnaeus” Wikipedia 12 June 2025; ODNB 12 June 2025; findmypast.com 12 June 2025; Alumni Oxonienses; CCEd 12 June 2025) HJ