Roger P. H. Green
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199284573
- eISBN:
- 9780191713804
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199284573.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The topic of the book is three Christian epic poets of Late Antiquity who, though somewhat neglected in modern times, are notable in many ways, especially in their aim of harnessing the tradition of ...
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The topic of the book is three Christian epic poets of Late Antiquity who, though somewhat neglected in modern times, are notable in many ways, especially in their aim of harnessing the tradition of classical Latin epic to the task of presenting the New Testament to the learned readers, whether they be Christian believers or curious enquirers, perhaps put off by the style of Bible translations. This triad were pioneers in their time but their works would soon become staple ingredients of the medieval curriculum. The book carefully introduces each author, setting them in their own contexts and backgrounds (one was from the fourth, one from the fifth, and one from the sixth century), and examines their work in detail. Particular themes illustrated and discussed are their strategies in rendering, sometimes literally, sometimes not, the Biblical narratives, the ways in which they reflect and exploit the classical epic poets in their design, style and vocabulary, and the particular theological agendas which they may pursue, implicitly or explicitly. The book engages fully and critically with recent studies of Biblical epic and investigates critically and in detail numerous other questions. Full details of all modern studies that relate to these poets and their backgrounds are given in a large bibliography.Less
The topic of the book is three Christian epic poets of Late Antiquity who, though somewhat neglected in modern times, are notable in many ways, especially in their aim of harnessing the tradition of classical Latin epic to the task of presenting the New Testament to the learned readers, whether they be Christian believers or curious enquirers, perhaps put off by the style of Bible translations. This triad were pioneers in their time but their works would soon become staple ingredients of the medieval curriculum. The book carefully introduces each author, setting them in their own contexts and backgrounds (one was from the fourth, one from the fifth, and one from the sixth century), and examines their work in detail. Particular themes illustrated and discussed are their strategies in rendering, sometimes literally, sometimes not, the Biblical narratives, the ways in which they reflect and exploit the classical epic poets in their design, style and vocabulary, and the particular theological agendas which they may pursue, implicitly or explicitly. The book engages fully and critically with recent studies of Biblical epic and investigates critically and in detail numerous other questions. Full details of all modern studies that relate to these poets and their backgrounds are given in a large bibliography.
Gian Biagio Conte and S. J. Harrison
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199287017
- eISBN:
- 9780191713262
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199287017.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter describes the new collection of papers on Virgil and characterises Gian Biagio Conte's scholarly output as a whole and its development over the years. In much of the collection, Conte ...
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This chapter describes the new collection of papers on Virgil and characterises Gian Biagio Conte's scholarly output as a whole and its development over the years. In much of the collection, Conte makes a crucial argument that the exceptional status of the Aeneid in Latin literature derives from its remarkably complex and ambiguous poetic texture. This book shows Conte's characteristic powers of focused analysis and critical exploitation of detailed verbal style in Latin literature, his enviable knowledge of scholarship on Virgil's poetry and its varied intellectual contexts, and his capacity to apply appropriate elements of literary theory with penetrating effect to the task of interpretation. In his scholarly work since the 1960s, while focusing especially on Latin epic, Conte has ranged across Latin literature from Plautus, Lucretius, and Catullus through Ovid to Pliny the Elder, and Petronius, and has shown his encyclopaedic interests in his best-selling history of Latin literature.Less
This chapter describes the new collection of papers on Virgil and characterises Gian Biagio Conte's scholarly output as a whole and its development over the years. In much of the collection, Conte makes a crucial argument that the exceptional status of the Aeneid in Latin literature derives from its remarkably complex and ambiguous poetic texture. This book shows Conte's characteristic powers of focused analysis and critical exploitation of detailed verbal style in Latin literature, his enviable knowledge of scholarship on Virgil's poetry and its varied intellectual contexts, and his capacity to apply appropriate elements of literary theory with penetrating effect to the task of interpretation. In his scholarly work since the 1960s, while focusing especially on Latin epic, Conte has ranged across Latin literature from Plautus, Lucretius, and Catullus through Ovid to Pliny the Elder, and Petronius, and has shown his encyclopaedic interests in his best-selling history of Latin literature.
Neil Coffee
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226111872
- eISBN:
- 9780226111902
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226111902.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Latin epics such as Virgil's Aeneid, Lucan's Civil War, and Statius' Thebaid addressed Roman aristocrats whose dealings in gifts, favors, and payments defined their conceptions of social order. This ...
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Latin epics such as Virgil's Aeneid, Lucan's Civil War, and Statius' Thebaid addressed Roman aristocrats whose dealings in gifts, favors, and payments defined their conceptions of social order. This book argues that these exchanges play a central yet overlooked role in epic depictions of Roman society. Tracing the collapse of an aristocratic worldview across all three poems, it highlights the distinction they draw between reciprocal gift giving among elites and the more problematic behaviors of buying and selling. In the Aeneid, customary gift and favor exchanges are undermined by characters who view human interaction as short-term and commodity-driven. The Civil War takes the next logical step, illuminating how Romans cope once commercial greed has supplanted traditional values. Concluding with the Thebaid, which focuses on the problems of excessive consumption rather than exchange, the book closes its case that these poems constitute far-reaching critiques of Roman society during its transition from republic to empire.Less
Latin epics such as Virgil's Aeneid, Lucan's Civil War, and Statius' Thebaid addressed Roman aristocrats whose dealings in gifts, favors, and payments defined their conceptions of social order. This book argues that these exchanges play a central yet overlooked role in epic depictions of Roman society. Tracing the collapse of an aristocratic worldview across all three poems, it highlights the distinction they draw between reciprocal gift giving among elites and the more problematic behaviors of buying and selling. In the Aeneid, customary gift and favor exchanges are undermined by characters who view human interaction as short-term and commodity-driven. The Civil War takes the next logical step, illuminating how Romans cope once commercial greed has supplanted traditional values. Concluding with the Thebaid, which focuses on the problems of excessive consumption rather than exchange, the book closes its case that these poems constitute far-reaching critiques of Roman society during its transition from republic to empire.
Karla Pollmann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198726487
- eISBN:
- 9780191793295
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198726487.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies, Religion and Literature
This chapter examines how epic, considered the grandest of all classical literary genres, was transformed in late antiquity in order to make its cultural potential serve (not only) Christian ends. ...
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This chapter examines how epic, considered the grandest of all classical literary genres, was transformed in late antiquity in order to make its cultural potential serve (not only) Christian ends. The rich spectrum of possible uses for the epic genre is illustrated through concrete examples organized into five (not necessarily exhaustive) types: (1) Mythological epic: Dracontius, Medea (Romulea 10); (2) (Pagan) panegyric epic: Claudian, De Bello Gildonico; (3) Allegorical epic: Prudentius, Psychomachia; (4) Biblical epic: Avitus, De Spiritalis Historiae Gestis; and (5) Hagiographical epic: Venantius Fortunatus, Vita S. Martini. The chapter concludes that Vergil maintains his dominant position as the Latin epicist that later epicists had to attempt to emulate. Likewise, epic style, figures of thought (like personifications, or the Muse) are either transformed or Christianized, but rarely abandoned. Moreover, the authoritative function of epic as pure explanation of the world yields to political and ecclesiastical purposes.Less
This chapter examines how epic, considered the grandest of all classical literary genres, was transformed in late antiquity in order to make its cultural potential serve (not only) Christian ends. The rich spectrum of possible uses for the epic genre is illustrated through concrete examples organized into five (not necessarily exhaustive) types: (1) Mythological epic: Dracontius, Medea (Romulea 10); (2) (Pagan) panegyric epic: Claudian, De Bello Gildonico; (3) Allegorical epic: Prudentius, Psychomachia; (4) Biblical epic: Avitus, De Spiritalis Historiae Gestis; and (5) Hagiographical epic: Venantius Fortunatus, Vita S. Martini. The chapter concludes that Vergil maintains his dominant position as the Latin epicist that later epicists had to attempt to emulate. Likewise, epic style, figures of thought (like personifications, or the Muse) are either transformed or Christianized, but rarely abandoned. Moreover, the authoritative function of epic as pure explanation of the world yields to political and ecclesiastical purposes.
Anne Tuttle
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199644094
- eISBN:
- 9780191745010
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644094.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the thematic significance of omens and portents in Statius’ Thebaid. It also provides an overview of and considers its intertextual relationship with other Latin epics with ...
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This chapter discusses the thematic significance of omens and portents in Statius’ Thebaid. It also provides an overview of and considers its intertextual relationship with other Latin epics with respect to augury and other signs from the gods, and how human characters react to them. By comparing the different instances of augury and portents and filtering them through the lens of Roman religion, the signs given and the consequences of human responses to the signs provide clues to the disposition of the gods and the role of human will in each narrative. The main focus of this chapter is upon the Argive augury and portents, and the implications for the nature of the divine machinery, Fate, and the relationship between humans and gods. Statius’ unique approach to supernatural signs has thematic consequences for the poem as a whole.Less
This chapter discusses the thematic significance of omens and portents in Statius’ Thebaid. It also provides an overview of and considers its intertextual relationship with other Latin epics with respect to augury and other signs from the gods, and how human characters react to them. By comparing the different instances of augury and portents and filtering them through the lens of Roman religion, the signs given and the consequences of human responses to the signs provide clues to the disposition of the gods and the role of human will in each narrative. The main focus of this chapter is upon the Argive augury and portents, and the implications for the nature of the divine machinery, Fate, and the relationship between humans and gods. Statius’ unique approach to supernatural signs has thematic consequences for the poem as a whole.
Sarah Annes Brown
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719085154
- eISBN:
- 9781781704684
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719085154.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book explores the relationship between allusion and the uncanny in literature. An unexpected echo or quotation in a new text can be compared to the sudden appearance of a ghost or mysterious ...
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This book explores the relationship between allusion and the uncanny in literature. An unexpected echo or quotation in a new text can be compared to the sudden appearance of a ghost or mysterious double, the reanimation of a corpse or the discovery of an ancient ruin hidden in a modern city. This study identifies moments where this affinity between allusion and the uncanny is used by writers to generate a particular textual charge, where uncanny elements are used to flag patterns of allusion and to point to the haunting presence of an earlier work. The book traces the subtle patterns of connection between texts centuries, even millennia apart, from Greek tragedy and Latin epic, through the plays of Shakespeare and the Victorian novel, to contemporary film, fiction and poetry. Each chapter takes a different uncanny motif as its focus: doubles, ruins, reanimation, ghosts and journeys to the underworld.Less
This book explores the relationship between allusion and the uncanny in literature. An unexpected echo or quotation in a new text can be compared to the sudden appearance of a ghost or mysterious double, the reanimation of a corpse or the discovery of an ancient ruin hidden in a modern city. This study identifies moments where this affinity between allusion and the uncanny is used by writers to generate a particular textual charge, where uncanny elements are used to flag patterns of allusion and to point to the haunting presence of an earlier work. The book traces the subtle patterns of connection between texts centuries, even millennia apart, from Greek tragedy and Latin epic, through the plays of Shakespeare and the Victorian novel, to contemporary film, fiction and poetry. Each chapter takes a different uncanny motif as its focus: doubles, ruins, reanimation, ghosts and journeys to the underworld.
Helen Lovatt
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199644094
- eISBN:
- 9780191745010
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644094.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter argues that theatricality plays an important part in exploring the authority and authenticity of prophecy in Latin epic. Confrontations between prophets and rulers allow an exploration ...
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This chapter argues that theatricality plays an important part in exploring the authority and authenticity of prophecy in Latin epic. Confrontations between prophets and rulers allow an exploration of both power and prophecy. The chapter looks at the double prophecies of Mopsus and Idmon in Valerius Flaccus, Tiresias’ necromancy and pyromancy and the confrontation between Amphiaraus and Capaneus in Statius, and two episodes in Silius: the argument between Flaminius and Corvinus and the competing interpretations of Liger and Bogus. Ultimately, Flavian epic suggests that apparent rationality can be another layer of performance, and that the spectacles of prophecy are just one more manifestation of the empty over–coherence of epic causation.Less
This chapter argues that theatricality plays an important part in exploring the authority and authenticity of prophecy in Latin epic. Confrontations between prophets and rulers allow an exploration of both power and prophecy. The chapter looks at the double prophecies of Mopsus and Idmon in Valerius Flaccus, Tiresias’ necromancy and pyromancy and the confrontation between Amphiaraus and Capaneus in Statius, and two episodes in Silius: the argument between Flaminius and Corvinus and the competing interpretations of Liger and Bogus. Ultimately, Flavian epic suggests that apparent rationality can be another layer of performance, and that the spectacles of prophecy are just one more manifestation of the empty over–coherence of epic causation.
Hunter H. Gardner
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198796428
- eISBN:
- 9780191837708
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198796428.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The seventh chapter of this project examines the transmission of Roman plague in literary and visual arts, beginning with the early Christian period and proceeding up through the present day. Such a ...
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The seventh chapter of this project examines the transmission of Roman plague in literary and visual arts, beginning with the early Christian period and proceeding up through the present day. Such a survey is necessarily selective and meant to indicate the range of interpretive possibilities available for readers who are sensitive to the conventions developed in the hexameter treatments of Lucretius, Vergil, and Ovid. The chapter focuses on three areas of reception: early Christian poetry and prose (Endelechius’ Carmen de Mortibus Boum; Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum), visual arts of the Italian Renaissance (e.g. Raphael’s Vergilian Plague of Phrygia [1520’s]) and Anglo-American novels (e.g. Mary Shelley’s The Last Man and Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy). The visual and literary arts discussed here crystallize the interplay between civil strife, familial discord, and epochal evolution evident in the pestilence narratives examined throughout this project. Roman conventions of representing pestilence help us understand how narratives of contagious disease up to the present day have dramatized a tension between ideals of autonomy and distinction and those that foster group cohesion and collectivity.Less
The seventh chapter of this project examines the transmission of Roman plague in literary and visual arts, beginning with the early Christian period and proceeding up through the present day. Such a survey is necessarily selective and meant to indicate the range of interpretive possibilities available for readers who are sensitive to the conventions developed in the hexameter treatments of Lucretius, Vergil, and Ovid. The chapter focuses on three areas of reception: early Christian poetry and prose (Endelechius’ Carmen de Mortibus Boum; Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum), visual arts of the Italian Renaissance (e.g. Raphael’s Vergilian Plague of Phrygia [1520’s]) and Anglo-American novels (e.g. Mary Shelley’s The Last Man and Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy). The visual and literary arts discussed here crystallize the interplay between civil strife, familial discord, and epochal evolution evident in the pestilence narratives examined throughout this project. Roman conventions of representing pestilence help us understand how narratives of contagious disease up to the present day have dramatized a tension between ideals of autonomy and distinction and those that foster group cohesion and collectivity.
Leah Whittington
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198754442
- eISBN:
- 9780191816017
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198754442.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
This chapter considers the intersection between epic and erotic supplication in the poetry of Francis Petrarch. It begins with Dante’s effort in the Vita Nuova and Commedia to remove the discursive ...
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This chapter considers the intersection between epic and erotic supplication in the poetry of Francis Petrarch. It begins with Dante’s effort in the Vita Nuova and Commedia to remove the discursive pattern of plea and response from vernacular love poetry. Petrarch responds to Dante’s pressing poetic authority by reintroducing supplicatory speech into Trecento Italian lyric, fusing the fin amor conventions of the suppliant lover and exalted lady with classical episodes of military clemency. In contrast with skeptical readings that emphasize the disingenuousness of the lover’s suppliant pose, the chapter argues that in his Latin epic Africa Petrarch turns the friction between classical and fin amor frameworks into a productive way of figuring the inward experience of love. Feeding this insight into his vernacular lyric cycle, Petrarch develops the supplicatory paradigm into a crucial poetic resource for telling the story of the multiple self in the Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta.Less
This chapter considers the intersection between epic and erotic supplication in the poetry of Francis Petrarch. It begins with Dante’s effort in the Vita Nuova and Commedia to remove the discursive pattern of plea and response from vernacular love poetry. Petrarch responds to Dante’s pressing poetic authority by reintroducing supplicatory speech into Trecento Italian lyric, fusing the fin amor conventions of the suppliant lover and exalted lady with classical episodes of military clemency. In contrast with skeptical readings that emphasize the disingenuousness of the lover’s suppliant pose, the chapter argues that in his Latin epic Africa Petrarch turns the friction between classical and fin amor frameworks into a productive way of figuring the inward experience of love. Feeding this insight into his vernacular lyric cycle, Petrarch develops the supplicatory paradigm into a crucial poetic resource for telling the story of the multiple self in the Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta.
Hunter H. Gardner
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198796428
- eISBN:
- 9780191837708
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198796428.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Introduction offers an overview of the book’s contents as well as a statement of the book’s general thesis: representations of plague in Latin epic play critical roles in diagnosing and ...
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The Introduction offers an overview of the book’s contents as well as a statement of the book’s general thesis: representations of plague in Latin epic play critical roles in diagnosing and rehabilitating a civic body wracked by discordia. They do so partly by staging a conflict between the concerns of the individual and the interests of the collective res publica. Lucretius, Ovid, and Vergil innovate within the tradition of plague writing by introducing new symptoms and social effects of contagious disease, and by emphasizing the expurgating properties of plague. Such properties allow these poets to weigh the possibility of an entirely new order against the likelihood that any civic body will bear traces of old pathologies.Less
The Introduction offers an overview of the book’s contents as well as a statement of the book’s general thesis: representations of plague in Latin epic play critical roles in diagnosing and rehabilitating a civic body wracked by discordia. They do so partly by staging a conflict between the concerns of the individual and the interests of the collective res publica. Lucretius, Ovid, and Vergil innovate within the tradition of plague writing by introducing new symptoms and social effects of contagious disease, and by emphasizing the expurgating properties of plague. Such properties allow these poets to weigh the possibility of an entirely new order against the likelihood that any civic body will bear traces of old pathologies.
Nicholas Horsfall
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198863861
- eISBN:
- 9780191896187
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198863861.003.0040
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
From a discussion of the singular concentration in Aeneid 6 of material pointing towards archaic Latin poetry and present in the text leading up to and including the famous verses excudent ...
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From a discussion of the singular concentration in Aeneid 6 of material pointing towards archaic Latin poetry and present in the text leading up to and including the famous verses excudent alii…(6.847–53), we pass to Virgil’s view of poets and poetry at large in Aeneid 6: a number of passages make it clear that Elysium is filled with poets, and their importance to Virgil emerges from the rhetorical structure of the last third of Aeneid 6.Less
From a discussion of the singular concentration in Aeneid 6 of material pointing towards archaic Latin poetry and present in the text leading up to and including the famous verses excudent alii…(6.847–53), we pass to Virgil’s view of poets and poetry at large in Aeneid 6: a number of passages make it clear that Elysium is filled with poets, and their importance to Virgil emerges from the rhetorical structure of the last third of Aeneid 6.
Yelena Baraz
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198746010
- eISBN:
- 9780191808722
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198746010.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter investigates how Seneca the Elder negotiates the generic position of declamation in his Controversiae and Suasoriae. It argues that his practice shows a perception of close generic ...
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This chapter investigates how Seneca the Elder negotiates the generic position of declamation in his Controversiae and Suasoriae. It argues that his practice shows a perception of close generic affinity between declamation and poetry, and focuses on his attempt to force his readers into a closer engagement with historiography. In the course of critiquing declamations, Seneca not infrequently offers as extra-declamatory comparanda examples from poetry, and especially from epic. He appears to take for granted his audience’s acceptance of the models of poetic description and poetic pathos. History, by contrast, does not appear as a parallel genre in the Controversiae and is cited only in the divisio of the sixth suasoria, on whether Cicero should ask Antony to spare him. Seneca expects his audience to be distressed by the introduction of historiographical texts, but insists on an extensive engagement with historical treatments as non alienum to the subject. This juxtaposition of attitudes suggests awareness on the part of Seneca’s audience of a generic identity centred on fictionality (a crucial distinction from traditional oratory). By centring his discussion on this exemplum, moreover, Seneca uses the most temporally proximate subject, Cicero’s death, to make the strongest possible argument for the potential benefit of history to the future development of the declamatory genre.Less
This chapter investigates how Seneca the Elder negotiates the generic position of declamation in his Controversiae and Suasoriae. It argues that his practice shows a perception of close generic affinity between declamation and poetry, and focuses on his attempt to force his readers into a closer engagement with historiography. In the course of critiquing declamations, Seneca not infrequently offers as extra-declamatory comparanda examples from poetry, and especially from epic. He appears to take for granted his audience’s acceptance of the models of poetic description and poetic pathos. History, by contrast, does not appear as a parallel genre in the Controversiae and is cited only in the divisio of the sixth suasoria, on whether Cicero should ask Antony to spare him. Seneca expects his audience to be distressed by the introduction of historiographical texts, but insists on an extensive engagement with historical treatments as non alienum to the subject. This juxtaposition of attitudes suggests awareness on the part of Seneca’s audience of a generic identity centred on fictionality (a crucial distinction from traditional oratory). By centring his discussion on this exemplum, moreover, Seneca uses the most temporally proximate subject, Cicero’s death, to make the strongest possible argument for the potential benefit of history to the future development of the declamatory genre.