Richard H. Armstrong
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199288076
- eISBN:
- 9780191713439
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199288076.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the retranslation of Greek epic poetry and argues for its importance in understanding how literary traditions shape the translation scenario. First, it treats the epic ...
More
This chapter discusses the retranslation of Greek epic poetry and argues for its importance in understanding how literary traditions shape the translation scenario. First, it treats the epic adaptations and translational practices of Roman authors, with particular focus on Ennius and Virgil. It also treats lesser-known translations of Greek epic from Roman times, and outlines the continuing history of Latin translation during the Renaissance, which was very influential for the burgeoning literatures of Western Europe. Then it details how this Latin tradition still informs the ‘classic’ English translations of George Chapman, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and William Cowper, who still read their Greek under the strong influence not only of Latin literary values, but also of Latin translational practices. While the Latin tradition was highly influential in shaping European retranslation of Greek epic, that tradition itself effectively produced no translation on a par with Chapman's Homer or Dryden's Virgil.Less
This chapter discusses the retranslation of Greek epic poetry and argues for its importance in understanding how literary traditions shape the translation scenario. First, it treats the epic adaptations and translational practices of Roman authors, with particular focus on Ennius and Virgil. It also treats lesser-known translations of Greek epic from Roman times, and outlines the continuing history of Latin translation during the Renaissance, which was very influential for the burgeoning literatures of Western Europe. Then it details how this Latin tradition still informs the ‘classic’ English translations of George Chapman, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and William Cowper, who still read their Greek under the strong influence not only of Latin literary values, but also of Latin translational practices. While the Latin tradition was highly influential in shaping European retranslation of Greek epic, that tradition itself effectively produced no translation on a par with Chapman's Homer or Dryden's Virgil.
Richard Jenkyns
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199276301
- eISBN:
- 9780191706011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276301.003.0011
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter is concerned with a paradox. It has been said that the 18th and 19th centuries were a barren period for epic poetry, yet the age was closely engaged with the epic idea. Several ...
More
This chapter is concerned with a paradox. It has been said that the 18th and 19th centuries were a barren period for epic poetry, yet the age was closely engaged with the epic idea. Several significant poets of 19th-century England discuss the epic genre in their verse, not allusively or intertextually but directly and explicitly: Byron, Tennyson, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning all do this. Arnold discussed epic in his prose, and his Sohrab and Rustum is so saturated in Homer that the essays On the Modern Element in Literature and On Translating Homer almost seem to be continuing by other means a debate which the poem initiates. Keats in his own person, Clough in the person of Dipsychus, and Pater's fictional poet Flavian all declare a contrast between themselves and Homer. If the 19th century is not an age of great epic, it is at least a great age for observing epic's interactions.Less
This chapter is concerned with a paradox. It has been said that the 18th and 19th centuries were a barren period for epic poetry, yet the age was closely engaged with the epic idea. Several significant poets of 19th-century England discuss the epic genre in their verse, not allusively or intertextually but directly and explicitly: Byron, Tennyson, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning all do this. Arnold discussed epic in his prose, and his Sohrab and Rustum is so saturated in Homer that the essays On the Modern Element in Literature and On Translating Homer almost seem to be continuing by other means a debate which the poem initiates. Keats in his own person, Clough in the person of Dipsychus, and Pater's fictional poet Flavian all declare a contrast between themselves and Homer. If the 19th century is not an age of great epic, it is at least a great age for observing epic's interactions.
Bruno Currie
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199276301
- eISBN:
- 9780191706011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276301.003.0012
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The range of epic poetry treated in this book is vast and the constructions placed on ‘interaction’ almost equally broad. This Epilogue explores points of convergence and divergence between the ...
More
The range of epic poetry treated in this book is vast and the constructions placed on ‘interaction’ almost equally broad. This Epilogue explores points of convergence and divergence between the chapters and attempts an overall narrative. At the same time further perspectives, and further problems, will emerge.Less
The range of epic poetry treated in this book is vast and the constructions placed on ‘interaction’ almost equally broad. This Epilogue explores points of convergence and divergence between the chapters and attempts an overall narrative. At the same time further perspectives, and further problems, will emerge.
Tim Stover
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199644087
- eISBN:
- 9780191741951
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644087.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, European History: BCE to 500CE
This book offers a new reading of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, a poem which is here dated to Vespasian's regime (70–79 ce). Its primary purpose is to show that Valerius' epic reflects the ...
More
This book offers a new reading of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, a poem which is here dated to Vespasian's regime (70–79 ce). Its primary purpose is to show that Valerius' epic reflects the restorative ideals of Vespasianic Rome, a thesis that sets it apart from the largely ‘pessimistic’ readings of other scholars. An important element of Valerius' poetics of recovery is an engagement with Lucan's iconoclastic Bellum Civile, a poem whose deconstructive tendencies offered Valerius a poetic point of departure for his attempt to renew the epic genre in the context of the political renewal triggered by Vespasian's accession to power. Thus, a secondary purpose of this study is to examine Valerius' response to his most recent epic predecessor, Lucan, a topic that has been woefully understudied. Accordingly, this work interprets Valerius' Argonauticaas a reaction to two primary stimuli, one poetic — Lucan's deconstructive epic of civil war — and one political — Vespasian's restoration of order following the destructive civil war of 68–69. The approach is thus both formalist and historicist: the book seeks not only to elucidate Valerius' dynamic appropriation of Lucan but also to associate the Argonautica's formal gestures with a specific socio-political context.Less
This book offers a new reading of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, a poem which is here dated to Vespasian's regime (70–79 ce). Its primary purpose is to show that Valerius' epic reflects the restorative ideals of Vespasianic Rome, a thesis that sets it apart from the largely ‘pessimistic’ readings of other scholars. An important element of Valerius' poetics of recovery is an engagement with Lucan's iconoclastic Bellum Civile, a poem whose deconstructive tendencies offered Valerius a poetic point of departure for his attempt to renew the epic genre in the context of the political renewal triggered by Vespasian's accession to power. Thus, a secondary purpose of this study is to examine Valerius' response to his most recent epic predecessor, Lucan, a topic that has been woefully understudied. Accordingly, this work interprets Valerius' Argonauticaas a reaction to two primary stimuli, one poetic — Lucan's deconstructive epic of civil war — and one political — Vespasian's restoration of order following the destructive civil war of 68–69. The approach is thus both formalist and historicist: the book seeks not only to elucidate Valerius' dynamic appropriation of Lucan but also to associate the Argonautica's formal gestures with a specific socio-political context.
Tim Stover
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199644087
- eISBN:
- 9780191741951
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644087.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter examines the significance of Jupiter's prophecy, demonstrating its importance for Valerius' poetics of rehabilitation. Jupiter's proclamation of the Fates, which engages directly with ...
More
This chapter examines the significance of Jupiter's prophecy, demonstrating its importance for Valerius' poetics of rehabilitation. Jupiter's proclamation of the Fates, which engages directly with Lucan, announces the inauguration of a new world order characterized by refoundation in the wake of political collapse. The ideology discernible in Jupiter's declaration of the new imperial dispensation finds a thematic counterpart in Valerius' depiction of Vespasian's regime. The establishment of the Flavian dynasty, like the establishment of Jupiter's cosmic regime, is marked by an impulse to expand outward into new realms, a theme that reroutes epic away from the collapsing world of Lucan's Bellum Civile. Lucan depicts a dying world in which there is no hope for the future; Valerius depicts the birth of a new world, one that not only offers hope for the future, but that also has an ameliorative impact on the accomplishment of heroic deeds and the epic poetry that heralds them.Less
This chapter examines the significance of Jupiter's prophecy, demonstrating its importance for Valerius' poetics of rehabilitation. Jupiter's proclamation of the Fates, which engages directly with Lucan, announces the inauguration of a new world order characterized by refoundation in the wake of political collapse. The ideology discernible in Jupiter's declaration of the new imperial dispensation finds a thematic counterpart in Valerius' depiction of Vespasian's regime. The establishment of the Flavian dynasty, like the establishment of Jupiter's cosmic regime, is marked by an impulse to expand outward into new realms, a theme that reroutes epic away from the collapsing world of Lucan's Bellum Civile. Lucan depicts a dying world in which there is no hope for the future; Valerius depicts the birth of a new world, one that not only offers hope for the future, but that also has an ameliorative impact on the accomplishment of heroic deeds and the epic poetry that heralds them.
Jean Baumgarten
Jerold C. Frakes (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199276332
- eISBN:
- 9780191699894
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276332.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism, Religion and Literature
This chapter examines the medieval epic and romance in Yiddish. The larger corpus of epic texts assumes a great significance in the history of Old Yiddish literature. These Yiddish epics go beyond ...
More
This chapter examines the medieval epic and romance in Yiddish. The larger corpus of epic texts assumes a great significance in the history of Old Yiddish literature. These Yiddish epics go beyond the simple didactic purposes of a number of the texts published up to that point, especially the translations of the Bible, for they are themselves authentic and original literary compositions. The authors of these stories, some of which are of great artistic value, demonstrate a great mastery of the form of German epic, as well as a scrupulous respect for the Hebrew sources. These epic poems, especially the Shmuel-bukh and Melokhim-bukh, mark the actual moment of birth, as it were, of a vernacular Jewish literature that had attained the level of other medieval European literatures.Less
This chapter examines the medieval epic and romance in Yiddish. The larger corpus of epic texts assumes a great significance in the history of Old Yiddish literature. These Yiddish epics go beyond the simple didactic purposes of a number of the texts published up to that point, especially the translations of the Bible, for they are themselves authentic and original literary compositions. The authors of these stories, some of which are of great artistic value, demonstrate a great mastery of the form of German epic, as well as a scrupulous respect for the Hebrew sources. These epic poems, especially the Shmuel-bukh and Melokhim-bukh, mark the actual moment of birth, as it were, of a vernacular Jewish literature that had attained the level of other medieval European literatures.
Charles A. Perrone
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813034218
- eISBN:
- 9780813038797
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813034218.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
When the classical epic model became no longer feasible, new forms of epiclike poetry were brought about that may be associated with the hemisphere's evolving realities. The meaning of the three ...
More
When the classical epic model became no longer feasible, new forms of epiclike poetry were brought about that may be associated with the hemisphere's evolving realities. The meaning of the three Americas goes beyond the geographical meaning and can be perceived through linguistic and cultural elements, or through ethnicity, race, or origins within an organizing frame that is varied across different areas. These ways of identifying the three Americas—Central, North, and South— is evident in various verses, especially in unconventional Brazilian works that further on hemispheric views that arose during the late romantic age, the twentieth century's avant-garde years, and the beginning of the twenty-first century. In this chapter, it is first important to identify how the genre and the New World's variations are manifested and how epic poetry is defined.Less
When the classical epic model became no longer feasible, new forms of epiclike poetry were brought about that may be associated with the hemisphere's evolving realities. The meaning of the three Americas goes beyond the geographical meaning and can be perceived through linguistic and cultural elements, or through ethnicity, race, or origins within an organizing frame that is varied across different areas. These ways of identifying the three Americas—Central, North, and South— is evident in various verses, especially in unconventional Brazilian works that further on hemispheric views that arose during the late romantic age, the twentieth century's avant-garde years, and the beginning of the twenty-first century. In this chapter, it is first important to identify how the genre and the New World's variations are manifested and how epic poetry is defined.
Anthony Welch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300178869
- eISBN:
- 9780300188998
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300178869.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book offers a close survey of the changing audiences, modes of reading, and cultural expectations that shaped epic writing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to the book, the ...
More
This book offers a close survey of the changing audiences, modes of reading, and cultural expectations that shaped epic writing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to the book, the theory and practice of epic poetry in this period—including little-known attempts by many epic poets to have their work orally recited or set to music—must be understood in the context of Renaissance musical humanism. This book's approach leads to a fresh perspective on a literary culture that stood on the brink of a new relationship with antiquity and on the history of music in the early modern era.Less
This book offers a close survey of the changing audiences, modes of reading, and cultural expectations that shaped epic writing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to the book, the theory and practice of epic poetry in this period—including little-known attempts by many epic poets to have their work orally recited or set to music—must be understood in the context of Renaissance musical humanism. This book's approach leads to a fresh perspective on a literary culture that stood on the brink of a new relationship with antiquity and on the history of music in the early modern era.
Thomas L. Brodie
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195138368
- eISBN:
- 9780199834037
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195138368.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Greco‐Persian culture encouraged theological inquiry, codification of law, and a transition from epic poetry to prose historiography. Wide‐ranging pioneering histories were written by Hecataeus, ...
More
Greco‐Persian culture encouraged theological inquiry, codification of law, and a transition from epic poetry to prose historiography. Wide‐ranging pioneering histories were written by Hecataeus, Herodotus, and Hellanicus. The Primary History as a whole – the entire wide‐ranging prose history – fits well into the Persian Empire.Less
Greco‐Persian culture encouraged theological inquiry, codification of law, and a transition from epic poetry to prose historiography. Wide‐ranging pioneering histories were written by Hecataeus, Herodotus, and Hellanicus. The Primary History as a whole – the entire wide‐ranging prose history – fits well into the Persian Empire.
Joseph E. Skinner
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199793600
- eISBN:
- 9780199979677
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199793600.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, World History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter demonstrates the relatively high levels of interest in and engagement with a wide variety of foreign or mythical peoples in the years prior to the Persian Wars. It then goes on to ...
More
This chapter demonstrates the relatively high levels of interest in and engagement with a wide variety of foreign or mythical peoples in the years prior to the Persian Wars. It then goes on to examine the interlocking systems of knowledge and understanding through which they found order and expression. Mapping out this “ethnography before ethnography” entails consideration of individual categories such as epic poetry and list songs, epithets, and stereotyping. However, it also stresses their essential connectivity within an overarching imaginaire, unhampered by epistemic distinctions that privilege rational and objective prose—“fact” over fiction.Less
This chapter demonstrates the relatively high levels of interest in and engagement with a wide variety of foreign or mythical peoples in the years prior to the Persian Wars. It then goes on to examine the interlocking systems of knowledge and understanding through which they found order and expression. Mapping out this “ethnography before ethnography” entails consideration of individual categories such as epic poetry and list songs, epithets, and stereotyping. However, it also stresses their essential connectivity within an overarching imaginaire, unhampered by epistemic distinctions that privilege rational and objective prose—“fact” over fiction.
Andrew O. Winckles
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620184
- eISBN:
- 9781789629651
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620184.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
This chapter examines how women used theological poetry to enter into public space during the 1820’s and 30’s through its consideration of the works of Agnes Bulmer and Felicia Hemans. In particular, ...
More
This chapter examines how women used theological poetry to enter into public space during the 1820’s and 30’s through its consideration of the works of Agnes Bulmer and Felicia Hemans. In particular, the chapter focuses on changing definitions of Christian womanhood in Methodism and how Bulmer negotiated them as a poet, scholar, wife, and faithful Methodist. It then turns to Bulmer’s epic poem, Messiah’s Kingdom, to explore how she develops her epic theology—accessing a tradition of women acting as prophets and priests to forward a unique systematic theology that places sense experience, of both the natural and spiritual worlds, at the center of evangelical hermeneutics. Finally, the chapter turn to Hemans’ religious poetry, and particularly the Songs and Hymns of Life, to witness how Hemans at the end of her life uses poetry to advocate for a public religious role for women. In essence she “takes a text” in the Methodist sense and licenses poetic preaching in a world that was rapidly revolving away from these types of roles for women.Less
This chapter examines how women used theological poetry to enter into public space during the 1820’s and 30’s through its consideration of the works of Agnes Bulmer and Felicia Hemans. In particular, the chapter focuses on changing definitions of Christian womanhood in Methodism and how Bulmer negotiated them as a poet, scholar, wife, and faithful Methodist. It then turns to Bulmer’s epic poem, Messiah’s Kingdom, to explore how she develops her epic theology—accessing a tradition of women acting as prophets and priests to forward a unique systematic theology that places sense experience, of both the natural and spiritual worlds, at the center of evangelical hermeneutics. Finally, the chapter turn to Hemans’ religious poetry, and particularly the Songs and Hymns of Life, to witness how Hemans at the end of her life uses poetry to advocate for a public religious role for women. In essence she “takes a text” in the Methodist sense and licenses poetic preaching in a world that was rapidly revolving away from these types of roles for women.
Rebecca Kosick
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474474603
- eISBN:
- 9781474490924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474474603.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Chapter 4 argues that Ronald Johnson’s ARK, written over a period of twenty years from the 1970s to the 1990s, represents a future of concrete poetry. This chapter shows how ARK carried the practice ...
More
Chapter 4 argues that Ronald Johnson’s ARK, written over a period of twenty years from the 1970s to the 1990s, represents a future of concrete poetry. This chapter shows how ARK carried the practice of concrete poetry into North America at the end of the twentieth century, and it examines the changes the practice undergoes as a result. ARK, a 300-page long poem, also incorporates modern and postmodern experiments with the epic form (such as Charles Olson’s The Maximus Poems). This chapter interrogates ARK’s approach to poetic time. ARK rejects history, as well the instantaneous time of earlier, more dogmatic versions of concrete poetry, where a small poem can be apprehended in what feels like an instant. Rather than linearity or instantaneity, this chapter argues that ARK constructs a circular time, which is itself interrupted by many circular eddies that wind the reader back through concrete poetry even as the book continues to move ‘forward’. This, in turn, leads towards a theory of the linguistic object which, in contradiction to many theories that take the object as already itself and finished, shows the object in-process, an ark-itecture in the making.Less
Chapter 4 argues that Ronald Johnson’s ARK, written over a period of twenty years from the 1970s to the 1990s, represents a future of concrete poetry. This chapter shows how ARK carried the practice of concrete poetry into North America at the end of the twentieth century, and it examines the changes the practice undergoes as a result. ARK, a 300-page long poem, also incorporates modern and postmodern experiments with the epic form (such as Charles Olson’s The Maximus Poems). This chapter interrogates ARK’s approach to poetic time. ARK rejects history, as well the instantaneous time of earlier, more dogmatic versions of concrete poetry, where a small poem can be apprehended in what feels like an instant. Rather than linearity or instantaneity, this chapter argues that ARK constructs a circular time, which is itself interrupted by many circular eddies that wind the reader back through concrete poetry even as the book continues to move ‘forward’. This, in turn, leads towards a theory of the linguistic object which, in contradiction to many theories that take the object as already itself and finished, shows the object in-process, an ark-itecture in the making.
John A. Sloboda
- Published in print:
- 1986
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198521280
- eISBN:
- 9780191706257
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198521280.003.0004
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
This chapter applies a ‘mental representation’ approach to understanding composition, and reviews four sources of evidence about the compositional process: sketches and notebooks; composers' own ...
More
This chapter applies a ‘mental representation’ approach to understanding composition, and reviews four sources of evidence about the compositional process: sketches and notebooks; composers' own accounts of their compositional processes; live observation of composition — sometimes with ongoing commentary (verbal protocols) from the composer; and observation of improvisatory behaviour. Comparisons are made to observations of the improvizations of the reciters of epic poetry. The chapter ends with an extended analysis of a self-observed compositional session.Less
This chapter applies a ‘mental representation’ approach to understanding composition, and reviews four sources of evidence about the compositional process: sketches and notebooks; composers' own accounts of their compositional processes; live observation of composition — sometimes with ongoing commentary (verbal protocols) from the composer; and observation of improvisatory behaviour. Comparisons are made to observations of the improvizations of the reciters of epic poetry. The chapter ends with an extended analysis of a self-observed compositional session.
M. L. West
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199662258
- eISBN:
- 9780191745942
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199662258.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the following: the definition of the Epic Cycle; Proclus' Chrestomatheias Eklogai and Apollodorus' Bibliotheke; the formation of the Cycle; the validity of the attested ...
More
This chapter discusses the following: the definition of the Epic Cycle; Proclus' Chrestomatheias Eklogai and Apollodorus' Bibliotheke; the formation of the Cycle; the validity of the attested ascriptions to particular poets; the reflexes of the Cycle in archaic and classical art and literature; and the fortunes of the Cycle in the early Hellenistic and early Roman period.Less
This chapter discusses the following: the definition of the Epic Cycle; Proclus' Chrestomatheias Eklogai and Apollodorus' Bibliotheke; the formation of the Cycle; the validity of the attested ascriptions to particular poets; the reflexes of the Cycle in archaic and classical art and literature; and the fortunes of the Cycle in the early Hellenistic and early Roman period.
Anthony Welch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300178869
- eISBN:
- 9780300188998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300178869.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore two tightly interwoven aspects of the Renaissance epic tradition: its changing relationship with antiquity and its complex ...
More
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore two tightly interwoven aspects of the Renaissance epic tradition: its changing relationship with antiquity and its complex attitudes toward oral performance. This book seeks to show that a key transition in literate Europe's perception of oral culture took place in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: an emerging view of orality not simply as a fact of daily social life but as the lost and mysterious preserve of human societies far remote in space and time. It also shows how epic poets from Tasso to Milton constructed models of the past that are characterized by song and oral performance, and how, in turn, those models forced them to reassess their own art and vocation.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore two tightly interwoven aspects of the Renaissance epic tradition: its changing relationship with antiquity and its complex attitudes toward oral performance. This book seeks to show that a key transition in literate Europe's perception of oral culture took place in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: an emerging view of orality not simply as a fact of daily social life but as the lost and mysterious preserve of human societies far remote in space and time. It also shows how epic poets from Tasso to Milton constructed models of the past that are characterized by song and oral performance, and how, in turn, those models forced them to reassess their own art and vocation.
Anthony Welch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300178869
- eISBN:
- 9780300188998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300178869.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter explores two dynastic epics that take up national origin myths: Pierre de Ronsard's Franciade (1572) and Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590, 1596). Ronsard's unfinished epic embarks on ...
More
This chapter explores two dynastic epics that take up national origin myths: Pierre de Ronsard's Franciade (1572) and Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590, 1596). Ronsard's unfinished epic embarks on a restless search for ever-older historical models to undergird its fiction, a quest that finally leads to the Orphic Hymns. Spenser's epic draws instead on the poet's encounters with the Irish bardic tradition, which force him to confront the primitive oral origins of both British chronicle history and the European epic tradition: a confrontation expressed in The Faerie Queene through fictions of primordial strife and Hesiodic theomachy.Less
This chapter explores two dynastic epics that take up national origin myths: Pierre de Ronsard's Franciade (1572) and Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590, 1596). Ronsard's unfinished epic embarks on a restless search for ever-older historical models to undergird its fiction, a quest that finally leads to the Orphic Hymns. Spenser's epic draws instead on the poet's encounters with the Irish bardic tradition, which force him to confront the primitive oral origins of both British chronicle history and the European epic tradition: a confrontation expressed in The Faerie Queene through fictions of primordial strife and Hesiodic theomachy.
Anthony Welch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300178869
- eISBN:
- 9780300188998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300178869.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter examines a body of poems written by a single close-knit group of Englishmen in the wake of their king's overthrow and execution in 1649. The defeated royalists who wrote most of these ...
More
This chapter examines a body of poems written by a single close-knit group of Englishmen in the wake of their king's overthrow and execution in 1649. The defeated royalists who wrote most of these poems sometimes compared their plight to the Babylonian captivity of the Israelites. The poetry of Abraham Cowley, William Davenant, and Samuel Butler shows how a range of royalist writers both embraced and shrank from that cultural authority. Their epic poems animadverted against the English Commonwealth, but also pondered the role of the artist in the polity.Less
This chapter examines a body of poems written by a single close-knit group of Englishmen in the wake of their king's overthrow and execution in 1649. The defeated royalists who wrote most of these poems sometimes compared their plight to the Babylonian captivity of the Israelites. The poetry of Abraham Cowley, William Davenant, and Samuel Butler shows how a range of royalist writers both embraced and shrank from that cultural authority. Their epic poems animadverted against the English Commonwealth, but also pondered the role of the artist in the polity.
Christopher N. Warren
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199599875
- eISBN:
- 9780191595813
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199599875.003.0008
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
This chapter illuminates a different sense in which Gentili's work was influenced by humanist sensibilities. Differentiating between legal humanism (the mos Gallicus) on one hand and rhetorical ...
More
This chapter illuminates a different sense in which Gentili's work was influenced by humanist sensibilities. Differentiating between legal humanism (the mos Gallicus) on one hand and rhetorical humanism on the other, it argues that Gentili did not subscribe to the rigid historical approach to legal sources as practised by the French humanist proponents of the mos Gallicus. Nor is the core significance of humanism in Gentili's writings directly related to his substantive stance on questions of the law of war, such as the issue of the legitimacy of pre-emptive warfare. It relates instead to the importance of the studia humanitatis and of the participation in the revival of classical learning, especially literature and poetry. Exploring the relationship in Gentili's writings between poets, especially Vergil, and the substance of his laws of war, the chapter acknowledges that poetry could not strictly serve as a source of law, yet emphasizes the importance of Vergil and other poets for Gentili's laws of war. In showing that poetry for Gentili went far beyond mere ornament, the chapter significantly enlarges standard international law-oriented understandings of Gentili's use of textual sources.Less
This chapter illuminates a different sense in which Gentili's work was influenced by humanist sensibilities. Differentiating between legal humanism (the mos Gallicus) on one hand and rhetorical humanism on the other, it argues that Gentili did not subscribe to the rigid historical approach to legal sources as practised by the French humanist proponents of the mos Gallicus. Nor is the core significance of humanism in Gentili's writings directly related to his substantive stance on questions of the law of war, such as the issue of the legitimacy of pre-emptive warfare. It relates instead to the importance of the studia humanitatis and of the participation in the revival of classical learning, especially literature and poetry. Exploring the relationship in Gentili's writings between poets, especially Vergil, and the substance of his laws of war, the chapter acknowledges that poetry could not strictly serve as a source of law, yet emphasizes the importance of Vergil and other poets for Gentili's laws of war. In showing that poetry for Gentili went far beyond mere ornament, the chapter significantly enlarges standard international law-oriented understandings of Gentili's use of textual sources.
Samuel K. Cohn
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199574025
- eISBN:
- 9780191722530
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199574025.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
The chapter reveals other new forms of plague writing spurred on by the peninsula‐wide threat of 1575–8: works of thanksgiving and liberation detailed celebrations cities offered for their heavenly ...
More
The chapter reveals other new forms of plague writing spurred on by the peninsula‐wide threat of 1575–8: works of thanksgiving and liberation detailed celebrations cities offered for their heavenly and secular deliverance from plague, and published plague poetry exploded in number. It parted with plague verse of the past going back to Lucretius. In place of lugubrious corpse‐strewn horrors, the plague poetry of 1575–8 sung the praises of local heroes from heads of health boards to bell‐ringers, celebrating their epic deeds that buttressed communities against imminent destruction and ultimately defeated the ‘hydra‐headed’ plague.Less
The chapter reveals other new forms of plague writing spurred on by the peninsula‐wide threat of 1575–8: works of thanksgiving and liberation detailed celebrations cities offered for their heavenly and secular deliverance from plague, and published plague poetry exploded in number. It parted with plague verse of the past going back to Lucretius. In place of lugubrious corpse‐strewn horrors, the plague poetry of 1575–8 sung the praises of local heroes from heads of health boards to bell‐ringers, celebrating their epic deeds that buttressed communities against imminent destruction and ultimately defeated the ‘hydra‐headed’ plague.
Anthony Welch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300178869
- eISBN:
- 9780300188998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300178869.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This brief interchapter surveys the interaction of the epic and pastoral traditions in the poetry of Giambattista Marino, Girard de Saint-Amant, and others. It shows how models of an oral past became ...
More
This brief interchapter surveys the interaction of the epic and pastoral traditions in the poetry of Giambattista Marino, Girard de Saint-Amant, and others. It shows how models of an oral past became involved in contrasts between nature and technology.Less
This brief interchapter surveys the interaction of the epic and pastoral traditions in the poetry of Giambattista Marino, Girard de Saint-Amant, and others. It shows how models of an oral past became involved in contrasts between nature and technology.