Robin Sowerby
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199286126
- eISBN:
- 9780191713873
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286126.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
Where previous studies of ‘Augustanism’ have concentrated largely upon political concerns, this book explores the translation of the Roman Augustan aesthetic into a vernacular equivalent by English ...
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Where previous studies of ‘Augustanism’ have concentrated largely upon political concerns, this book explores the translation of the Roman Augustan aesthetic into a vernacular equivalent by English neoclassical poets and does so through the analysis of translations. It has its genesis in the claim made implicitly by Dryden at the conclusion of his Virgil that he had given English poetry the kind of refinement in language and style that Virgil had given the Latin. The opening chapter explores the mediation of the Augustan aesthetic to the early Renaissance by way of the De Arte Poetica of the neo Latin Renaissance poet Vida, represented here in the Augustan version of Pitt. The second chapter charts early English engagements with the classical inheritance before moving on to its chief focus, Dryden's relation to his early predecessors in the refinement of the heroic couplet, Denham and Waller, and the establishment of the full Augustan aesthetic represented in Dryden's Virgil. The third and fourth chapters consider the effect of the Augustan aesthetic upon the translation of silver Latin poets, concentrating on Dryden's Persius and Juvenal, Rowe's Lucan and Pope's Statius and finally on the climactic Augustan achievement, Pope's Homer. The distinguishing strengths of Augustan poetic artistry are shown to advantage in a brief epilogue juxtaposing Augustan and modern versions.Less
Where previous studies of ‘Augustanism’ have concentrated largely upon political concerns, this book explores the translation of the Roman Augustan aesthetic into a vernacular equivalent by English neoclassical poets and does so through the analysis of translations. It has its genesis in the claim made implicitly by Dryden at the conclusion of his Virgil that he had given English poetry the kind of refinement in language and style that Virgil had given the Latin. The opening chapter explores the mediation of the Augustan aesthetic to the early Renaissance by way of the De Arte Poetica of the neo Latin Renaissance poet Vida, represented here in the Augustan version of Pitt. The second chapter charts early English engagements with the classical inheritance before moving on to its chief focus, Dryden's relation to his early predecessors in the refinement of the heroic couplet, Denham and Waller, and the establishment of the full Augustan aesthetic represented in Dryden's Virgil. The third and fourth chapters consider the effect of the Augustan aesthetic upon the translation of silver Latin poets, concentrating on Dryden's Persius and Juvenal, Rowe's Lucan and Pope's Statius and finally on the climactic Augustan achievement, Pope's Homer. The distinguishing strengths of Augustan poetic artistry are shown to advantage in a brief epilogue juxtaposing Augustan and modern versions.
Micaela Janan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199556922
- eISBN:
- 9780191721021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556922.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual ...
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Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual conversation among Latin epics did not stop with the Metamorphoses. This chapter examines briefly how Ovid crucially and fundamentally shaped his epic successors' civic visions, sketching the parameters of generic re‐vision from Lucan to Silius Italicus. The intrafamilial civil war regularly dramatized by Vergil's successors moulds their epic cities around political desperation and gendered conflict. Vergil shaped the beginnings of the urbs aeterna into a providential narrative whose logical telos was Augustan Rome, bequeathing to later epic intense engagement with the nature and limitations of the polity. But Ovid shared that engagement; what the post‐Augustan epicists read in Vergil they read in part through the lens Ovid had provided them. His Thebes particularizes just how the providential city comes to grief.Less
Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual conversation among Latin epics did not stop with the Metamorphoses. This chapter examines briefly how Ovid crucially and fundamentally shaped his epic successors' civic visions, sketching the parameters of generic re‐vision from Lucan to Silius Italicus. The intrafamilial civil war regularly dramatized by Vergil's successors moulds their epic cities around political desperation and gendered conflict. Vergil shaped the beginnings of the urbs aeterna into a providential narrative whose logical telos was Augustan Rome, bequeathing to later epic intense engagement with the nature and limitations of the polity. But Ovid shared that engagement; what the post‐Augustan epicists read in Vergil they read in part through the lens Ovid had provided them. His Thebes particularizes just how the providential city comes to grief.
John Jory
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199232536
- eISBN:
- 9780191716003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232536.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The poets Statius and Lucan are both said to have written pantomimes, and this chapter considers the relationship of pantomime art to poetic texts. The chapter underlines the importance of the ...
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The poets Statius and Lucan are both said to have written pantomimes, and this chapter considers the relationship of pantomime art to poetic texts. The chapter underlines the importance of the enunciated narrative to the performance. The chapter considers a wide range of evidence about the libretti of pantomime, from disparaging comments on the quality of the words composed specifically for the pantomime dancer, to the alleged small fragments embedded in authors including Petronius. The chapter considers the possible reasons for the apparent wholesale loss of the words which accompanied pantomime, and discusses what sort of poetry and verse forms would have been most suitable; in adapting the text for a tragedy, for example, monologue would have proved much more practicable than stichomythia. The performance evidence relating to Bathyllus and Pylades, the pantomime dancers credited with introducing the art form in the reign of Augustus, is given detailed attention.Less
The poets Statius and Lucan are both said to have written pantomimes, and this chapter considers the relationship of pantomime art to poetic texts. The chapter underlines the importance of the enunciated narrative to the performance. The chapter considers a wide range of evidence about the libretti of pantomime, from disparaging comments on the quality of the words composed specifically for the pantomime dancer, to the alleged small fragments embedded in authors including Petronius. The chapter considers the possible reasons for the apparent wholesale loss of the words which accompanied pantomime, and discusses what sort of poetry and verse forms would have been most suitable; in adapting the text for a tragedy, for example, monologue would have proved much more practicable than stichomythia. The performance evidence relating to Bathyllus and Pylades, the pantomime dancers credited with introducing the art form in the reign of Augustus, is given detailed attention.
Charles Martindale
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199240401
- eISBN:
- 9780191714337
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199240401.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter asks what an aesthetic criticism of Latin poetry in the 21st century may look like. There is a strong body of aesthetic criticism in English, which, while from a Kantian perspective ...
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This chapter asks what an aesthetic criticism of Latin poetry in the 21st century may look like. There is a strong body of aesthetic criticism in English, which, while from a Kantian perspective should not be regarded as an object of imitation, can be construed as exemplary. For both theory and practice, the chapter turns to Pater whose writings sought to isolate the ‘virtue’, the unique aesthetic character of artworks. It offers three short essays in this mode (on Lucretius, Ovid, and Lucan), for which nothing is claimed except that they are gestures towards a revised practice. These authors have been chosen as offering the reader the experience of a unique kind of beauty that he or she will find nowhere else. For instance, the virtue of Lucretius is located in his combined love of things, words, and ideas, and an imaginatively realized vision of the universe grounded in nature and reason.Less
This chapter asks what an aesthetic criticism of Latin poetry in the 21st century may look like. There is a strong body of aesthetic criticism in English, which, while from a Kantian perspective should not be regarded as an object of imitation, can be construed as exemplary. For both theory and practice, the chapter turns to Pater whose writings sought to isolate the ‘virtue’, the unique aesthetic character of artworks. It offers three short essays in this mode (on Lucretius, Ovid, and Lucan), for which nothing is claimed except that they are gestures towards a revised practice. These authors have been chosen as offering the reader the experience of a unique kind of beauty that he or she will find nowhere else. For instance, the virtue of Lucretius is located in his combined love of things, words, and ideas, and an imaginatively realized vision of the universe grounded in nature and reason.
Llewelyn Morgan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199554188
- eISBN:
- 9780191594991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554188.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter investigates the ethos embodied by the hendecasyllable, a favourite metre of the Flavian authors Statius and Martial. Starting from one of Statius' most ambitious hendecasyllabic poems, ...
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This chapter investigates the ethos embodied by the hendecasyllable, a favourite metre of the Flavian authors Statius and Martial. Starting from one of Statius' most ambitious hendecasyllabic poems, Silvae 4.3 on the Via Domitiana, it shows that the hendecasyllable was perceived to embody the character of its most celebrated exponent, Catullus, and that the account of the Via Domitiana comes vividly to life when the Catullan quality imparted by the metre is allowed to assert itself. Other aspects of the metre are then considered, especially the polar relationship operative between it and the dactylic hexameter, and its particular aptness for poetic accounts of diminutive topics. Suggestions are made about the character of the metre as it had been encountered by Catullus. These insights are then fed back into a concluding analysis of the metrical dimension of another arresting deployment of hendecasyllables by Statius, the celebration-cum-lament on Lucan's birthday at Silvae 2.7.Less
This chapter investigates the ethos embodied by the hendecasyllable, a favourite metre of the Flavian authors Statius and Martial. Starting from one of Statius' most ambitious hendecasyllabic poems, Silvae 4.3 on the Via Domitiana, it shows that the hendecasyllable was perceived to embody the character of its most celebrated exponent, Catullus, and that the account of the Via Domitiana comes vividly to life when the Catullan quality imparted by the metre is allowed to assert itself. Other aspects of the metre are then considered, especially the polar relationship operative between it and the dactylic hexameter, and its particular aptness for poetic accounts of diminutive topics. Suggestions are made about the character of the metre as it had been encountered by Catullus. These insights are then fed back into a concluding analysis of the metrical dimension of another arresting deployment of hendecasyllables by Statius, the celebration-cum-lament on Lucan's birthday at Silvae 2.7.
Ben Tipping
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199550111
- eISBN:
- 9780191720611
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550111.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Silius Italicus' Punica should be the example of Roman epic, glorifying hard-won victory over an external enemy at the height of the republic, between the legendary beginnings that Virgil traces in ...
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Silius Italicus' Punica should be the example of Roman epic, glorifying hard-won victory over an external enemy at the height of the republic, between the legendary beginnings that Virgil traces in the Aeneid and the decline into civil war that Lucan laments in the De bello civili. Yet even now, as ongoing antipathy to positivist aesthetics facilitates re-evaluation of potential subject matter for monographs, classicists are less familiar with the Punica itself than with the sort of faint praise or outright condemnation that has, since antiquity, characterized literary-critical response to Silius' poem. This chapter shows how Silius' epic merits close attention both per se and for its rich interrelationships with other works, especially its main generic paradigms, Virgil's Aeneid and Lucan's De bello civili.Less
Silius Italicus' Punica should be the example of Roman epic, glorifying hard-won victory over an external enemy at the height of the republic, between the legendary beginnings that Virgil traces in the Aeneid and the decline into civil war that Lucan laments in the De bello civili. Yet even now, as ongoing antipathy to positivist aesthetics facilitates re-evaluation of potential subject matter for monographs, classicists are less familiar with the Punica itself than with the sort of faint praise or outright condemnation that has, since antiquity, characterized literary-critical response to Silius' poem. This chapter shows how Silius' epic merits close attention both per se and for its rich interrelationships with other works, especially its main generic paradigms, Virgil's Aeneid and Lucan's De bello civili.
Ben Tipping
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199550111
- eISBN:
- 9780191720611
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199550111.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores the character Scipio in Silius' Punica. The Punica ends with a triumph, and triumph is strongly closural. Yet by echoing Lucan's De bello civili, Silius points to the way in ...
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This chapter explores the character Scipio in Silius' Punica. The Punica ends with a triumph, and triumph is strongly closural. Yet by echoing Lucan's De bello civili, Silius points to the way in which the figure of Africanus is himself unclosed, the stuff of epic representation and its reception. There is a further Lucanian dimension to the undermined closure of the Punica. With the final, apostrophizing couplet of the poem, the narrator places himself among the citizens who watch Scipio's triumph. Participation in his own narrative here places him at a particular point in history, as if certain events, including, of course, Scipio's political downfall, were part of a future still to come.Less
This chapter explores the character Scipio in Silius' Punica. The Punica ends with a triumph, and triumph is strongly closural. Yet by echoing Lucan's De bello civili, Silius points to the way in which the figure of Africanus is himself unclosed, the stuff of epic representation and its reception. There is a further Lucanian dimension to the undermined closure of the Punica. With the final, apostrophizing couplet of the poem, the narrator places himself among the citizens who watch Scipio's triumph. Participation in his own narrative here places him at a particular point in history, as if certain events, including, of course, Scipio's political downfall, were part of a future still to come.
Elaine Fantham
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195389579
- eISBN:
- 9780199866496
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195389579.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter looks at Lucan's historical epic, a representation of the civil wars of the Late Republic from a time decades into the imperial period, arguing that the perpetual conflict of Rome's ...
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This chapter looks at Lucan's historical epic, a representation of the civil wars of the Late Republic from a time decades into the imperial period, arguing that the perpetual conflict of Rome's civil wars becomes a kind of elemental force in Lucan's poem. The appropriate image is not a repeating series but rather a contagious disease: discordia spreads to infect everything from the soldiers on the field of battle to soil of Thessaly to the weather and the cosmos itself. To add this dimension to the narrative Lucan blended the Lucretian inheritance of scientific poetry and his own training in Stoic philosophy into the traditional substrate of historical narrative and epic style.Less
This chapter looks at Lucan's historical epic, a representation of the civil wars of the Late Republic from a time decades into the imperial period, arguing that the perpetual conflict of Rome's civil wars becomes a kind of elemental force in Lucan's poem. The appropriate image is not a repeating series but rather a contagious disease: discordia spreads to infect everything from the soldiers on the field of battle to soil of Thessaly to the weather and the cosmos itself. To add this dimension to the narrative Lucan blended the Lucretian inheritance of scientific poetry and his own training in Stoic philosophy into the traditional substrate of historical narrative and epic style.
Paul Russell
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195110333
- eISBN:
- 9780199872084
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195110333.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Both the epigrams that Hume uses on the title‐pages of the Treatise of Human Nature are very significant and reveal his freethinking and irreligious aims and intentions.. More specifically, the ...
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Both the epigrams that Hume uses on the title‐pages of the Treatise of Human Nature are very significant and reveal his freethinking and irreligious aims and intentions.. More specifically, the epigram from Tacitus that appears in Books I and II was used not only by Spinoza, but also by his followers in the Collins‐Toland circle to proclaim their bold defense of freethinking. At the same time, the Lucan epigram that appears in Book III also appears prominently in Collins's Freethinking and carries the message of Cato, a model of stoic virtue and the oracle of pantheism, freedom of thought, and anti‐superstition. Beyond this, these two epigrams are also intimately connected with Hume's Hobbist title and plan for his Treatise. In this way, Hume's use of epigrams on the title page of the Treatise is a notable and illuminating example of “esoteric” communication.Less
Both the epigrams that Hume uses on the title‐pages of the Treatise of Human Nature are very significant and reveal his freethinking and irreligious aims and intentions.. More specifically, the epigram from Tacitus that appears in Books I and II was used not only by Spinoza, but also by his followers in the Collins‐Toland circle to proclaim their bold defense of freethinking. At the same time, the Lucan epigram that appears in Book III also appears prominently in Collins's Freethinking and carries the message of Cato, a model of stoic virtue and the oracle of pantheism, freedom of thought, and anti‐superstition. Beyond this, these two epigrams are also intimately connected with Hume's Hobbist title and plan for his Treatise. In this way, Hume's use of epigrams on the title page of the Treatise is a notable and illuminating example of “esoteric” communication.
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.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226111872
- eISBN:
- 9780226111902
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226111902.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter briefly summarizes the results with reference to contemporary work on exchange and human evolution. Devolution to an economy of thoroughly independent Roman households is the best ...
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This chapter briefly summarizes the results with reference to contemporary work on exchange and human evolution. Devolution to an economy of thoroughly independent Roman households is the best solution Lucan can find to the failed reciprocity of the Republic. The Golden Age imagery Vergil associates with Augustus implies that he may have believed the princeps could restore the republican socioeconomic system. Statius implicitly and intuitively furthers the claim of the Hellenistic philosophical schools that human beings can attain self-sufficiency with his vision of pietas and clementia fully realized by individuals. Vergil endows his epic with greater moralism than does Homer by privileging reciprocity; Lucan expresses frustration at the failure of the republican socioeconomic system and searches for political alternatives. Like Vergil and Lucan, Statius uses epic to represent socioeconomic affairs in crisis.Less
This chapter briefly summarizes the results with reference to contemporary work on exchange and human evolution. Devolution to an economy of thoroughly independent Roman households is the best solution Lucan can find to the failed reciprocity of the Republic. The Golden Age imagery Vergil associates with Augustus implies that he may have believed the princeps could restore the republican socioeconomic system. Statius implicitly and intuitively furthers the claim of the Hellenistic philosophical schools that human beings can attain self-sufficiency with his vision of pietas and clementia fully realized by individuals. Vergil endows his epic with greater moralism than does Homer by privileging reciprocity; Lucan expresses frustration at the failure of the republican socioeconomic system and searches for political alternatives. Like Vergil and Lucan, Statius uses epic to represent socioeconomic affairs in crisis.
Paolo Asso
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199595006
- eISBN:
- 9780191731464
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199595006.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, African History: BCE to 500CE
Africa in Lucan embraces not only the familiar geographical concept but also the complex historical and literary‐historical associations with the memories of the wars against Hannibal and Jugurtha. ...
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Africa in Lucan embraces not only the familiar geographical concept but also the complex historical and literary‐historical associations with the memories of the wars against Hannibal and Jugurtha. Far from being a mere repertoire of historical memory that recalls the glories of past conquest, along with the aggrandizing victories of such prominent players as Scipio Africanus and Marius, Africa in Lucan is praised also for her own qualities, for her wealth of crops and precious timber, and for her strong inhabitants, rough men able to endure tough weather and the most strenuous combat. In exposing Africa's complexity and embedded contradictions as a continent, a Roman province, and a hypostasis of Mother Earth, Lucan not only unveils the Roman ethnic biases, but on geographic and geo‐political bases also questions the concept itself of Roman identity through his poetics of civil war.Less
Africa in Lucan embraces not only the familiar geographical concept but also the complex historical and literary‐historical associations with the memories of the wars against Hannibal and Jugurtha. Far from being a mere repertoire of historical memory that recalls the glories of past conquest, along with the aggrandizing victories of such prominent players as Scipio Africanus and Marius, Africa in Lucan is praised also for her own qualities, for her wealth of crops and precious timber, and for her strong inhabitants, rough men able to endure tough weather and the most strenuous combat. In exposing Africa's complexity and embedded contradictions as a continent, a Roman province, and a hypostasis of Mother Earth, Lucan not only unveils the Roman ethnic biases, but on geographic and geo‐political bases also questions the concept itself of Roman identity through his poetics of civil war.
Robin Sowerby
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199286126
- eISBN:
- 9780191713873
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286126.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter examines the effect that the English Augustan aesthetic — embodied in the example of the Roman Augustan Virgil — had on the translation those silver Latin poets who reacted against the ...
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This chapter examines the effect that the English Augustan aesthetic — embodied in the example of the Roman Augustan Virgil — had on the translation those silver Latin poets who reacted against the artistic ideals of the Roman Augustans. All the various translations examined — Dryden's Persius and Juvenal, Rowe's Lucan and Pope's Statius, all Latin poets of the silver age — are shown to embody the hard won Augustan virtues of clearness, purity, and ease that are the hallmarks of the Augustan achievement of Dryden's language and style. The strength and limitations of Rowe's Lucan, hailed by Dr Johnson as one of the greatest productions of English poetry, are brought out in a comparison with Marlowe's earlier version. Pope's vigorous version of Statius, it is argued, proved to be a promising apprenticeship for the translation of Homer.Less
This chapter examines the effect that the English Augustan aesthetic — embodied in the example of the Roman Augustan Virgil — had on the translation those silver Latin poets who reacted against the artistic ideals of the Roman Augustans. All the various translations examined — Dryden's Persius and Juvenal, Rowe's Lucan and Pope's Statius, all Latin poets of the silver age — are shown to embody the hard won Augustan virtues of clearness, purity, and ease that are the hallmarks of the Augustan achievement of Dryden's language and style. The strength and limitations of Rowe's Lucan, hailed by Dr Johnson as one of the greatest productions of English poetry, are brought out in a comparison with Marlowe's earlier version. Pope's vigorous version of Statius, it is argued, proved to be a promising apprenticeship for the translation of Homer.
ROGER P. H. GREEN
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199284573
- eISBN:
- 9780191713804
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199284573.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Arator's epic was recited by him in April 544 on the steps of a church in Rome: a minute of the ceremony of presenting his work to the Pope still exists. It is a triumphalist poem in what was a ...
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Arator's epic was recited by him in April 544 on the steps of a church in Rome: a minute of the ceremony of presenting his work to the Pope still exists. It is a triumphalist poem in what was a short-lived respite from Gothic attacks, and Arator himself had just a few years earlier fled to Rome from the Gothic-dominated city of Ravenna, where his career had begun. His theme is the Acts of the Apostles; from the New Testament account he selects episodes for poetic elaboration in his own mannered but recognisably epic style (Lucan, it emerges, is a particular favourite), and with an eye to speeches that he can reconfigure as powerful and vivid homilies. His colourful finale, in which Peter and Paul join forces in Rome, is particularly effective.Less
Arator's epic was recited by him in April 544 on the steps of a church in Rome: a minute of the ceremony of presenting his work to the Pope still exists. It is a triumphalist poem in what was a short-lived respite from Gothic attacks, and Arator himself had just a few years earlier fled to Rome from the Gothic-dominated city of Ravenna, where his career had begun. His theme is the Acts of the Apostles; from the New Testament account he selects episodes for poetic elaboration in his own mannered but recognisably epic style (Lucan, it emerges, is a particular favourite), and with an eye to speeches that he can reconfigure as powerful and vivid homilies. His colourful finale, in which Peter and Paul join forces in Rome, is particularly effective.
Matthew Leigh
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199218035
- eISBN:
- 9780191711534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199218035.003.0011
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Africa is Petrarch’s epic on the Second Punic War and the glorious career of Scipio Africanus Maior. The very rumour of its composition was enough to gain for the poet the laurel crown bestowed ...
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The Africa is Petrarch’s epic on the Second Punic War and the glorious career of Scipio Africanus Maior. The very rumour of its composition was enough to gain for the poet the laurel crown bestowed on him by the city of Rome in 1341; but the poem itself, jealously guarded by its author, and perhaps finally abandoned as incapable of completion, was still unpublished and massively lacunose at the time of his death in 1374. The work finally crept into publication in the 1390s, an inert curio as disregarded by the subsequent centuries as the Rime sparse were adored. Scholarship, in turn, is limited. A major critical edition of the poem was produced by Festa in 1926, and was the subject of a detailed review by Fraenkel, but subsequent criticism has been scant. Even the greatest students of Petrarch, for all that they cite certain parts of the Africa as witness to one stage in the development of his thought, appear to content themselves with reference to specific key passages in the poem. This chapter attempts to make good some of what is lost in the process. The key to this investigation is the presence of Lucan.Less
The Africa is Petrarch’s epic on the Second Punic War and the glorious career of Scipio Africanus Maior. The very rumour of its composition was enough to gain for the poet the laurel crown bestowed on him by the city of Rome in 1341; but the poem itself, jealously guarded by its author, and perhaps finally abandoned as incapable of completion, was still unpublished and massively lacunose at the time of his death in 1374. The work finally crept into publication in the 1390s, an inert curio as disregarded by the subsequent centuries as the Rime sparse were adored. Scholarship, in turn, is limited. A major critical edition of the poem was produced by Festa in 1926, and was the subject of a detailed review by Fraenkel, but subsequent criticism has been scant. Even the greatest students of Petrarch, for all that they cite certain parts of the Africa as witness to one stage in the development of his thought, appear to content themselves with reference to specific key passages in the poem. This chapter attempts to make good some of what is lost in the process. The key to this investigation is the presence of Lucan.
Edward Paleit
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199602988
- eISBN:
- 9780191744761
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602988.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, British and Irish History: BCE to 500CE
Starting with an examination of two readings of Lucan in the hitherto little-known play Cinthias Revenge (1613), by the English lawyer and satirist John Stephens, the introduction argues that Lucan’s ...
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Starting with an examination of two readings of Lucan in the hitherto little-known play Cinthias Revenge (1613), by the English lawyer and satirist John Stephens, the introduction argues that Lucan’s sharp rise in popularity during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the equally pronounced revival of interest in the Bellum Ciuile amongst classics and English scholars over the last thirty years, makes a study of Lucan’s Renaissance reception timely and topical. Drawing on the ‘sociology of reading practices’ outlined by Renaissance scholars such as Anthony Grafton, Lisa Jardine, William Sherman and others, it argues that firstly responses to Lucan must be situated in relation to the reading habits and assumptions of their time, rather than read through modern accounts of his text (especially those structured teleologically around ideas like the epic tradition); but that it is also necessary to recognize the specific dynamics of individual engagements within a narrative of historical conflict and change. It stresses the importance of political experience and structures of feeling alongside political ideology for understanding Lucan’s reception.Less
Starting with an examination of two readings of Lucan in the hitherto little-known play Cinthias Revenge (1613), by the English lawyer and satirist John Stephens, the introduction argues that Lucan’s sharp rise in popularity during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the equally pronounced revival of interest in the Bellum Ciuile amongst classics and English scholars over the last thirty years, makes a study of Lucan’s Renaissance reception timely and topical. Drawing on the ‘sociology of reading practices’ outlined by Renaissance scholars such as Anthony Grafton, Lisa Jardine, William Sherman and others, it argues that firstly responses to Lucan must be situated in relation to the reading habits and assumptions of their time, rather than read through modern accounts of his text (especially those structured teleologically around ideas like the epic tradition); but that it is also necessary to recognize the specific dynamics of individual engagements within a narrative of historical conflict and change. It stresses the importance of political experience and structures of feeling alongside political ideology for understanding Lucan’s reception.
Lauren Donovan Ginsberg
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190275952
- eISBN:
- 9780190275976
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190275952.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book situates the Octavia within the literary and political context of Nero’s reign and the years after his death. As a product of these turbulent years, the Octavia powerfully challenges the ...
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This book situates the Octavia within the literary and political context of Nero’s reign and the years after his death. As a product of these turbulent years, the Octavia powerfully challenges the image of the Julio-Claudians as bringers of peace. Instead, it re-envisions their history as a series of bloody civil wars that the imperial family waged on itself and on its people. In order to rewrite the dynasty’s history, the Octavia engages with the literature of Julio-Claudian Rome, using the words of celebrated authors to stage a new reading of the past that fills the drama with conflicting memories of what the first imperial family meant to Rome. Chief among these are Vergil’s Aeneid and Lucan’s Bellum Civile, strife-ridden epics that bookend the dynasty’s time in power with very different ideologies of one-man rule. The words of Horace, Livy, Propertius, Ovid, and Seneca also hover behind the play’s language, as do more public scripts like the Res Gestae. The play opens a dialogue about literary versions of history and about the legitimacy of those accounts. Through an innovative combination of intertextual analysis and cultural memory theory, the book elucidates the roles that literature and the literary manipulation of memory play in negotiating the transition between the Julio-Claudian and Flavian regimes. It thus claims for the Octavia a central role in current debates over the ways in which Nero and his family were remembered, as well as the politics of literary and cultural memory in the early Roman Empire.Less
This book situates the Octavia within the literary and political context of Nero’s reign and the years after his death. As a product of these turbulent years, the Octavia powerfully challenges the image of the Julio-Claudians as bringers of peace. Instead, it re-envisions their history as a series of bloody civil wars that the imperial family waged on itself and on its people. In order to rewrite the dynasty’s history, the Octavia engages with the literature of Julio-Claudian Rome, using the words of celebrated authors to stage a new reading of the past that fills the drama with conflicting memories of what the first imperial family meant to Rome. Chief among these are Vergil’s Aeneid and Lucan’s Bellum Civile, strife-ridden epics that bookend the dynasty’s time in power with very different ideologies of one-man rule. The words of Horace, Livy, Propertius, Ovid, and Seneca also hover behind the play’s language, as do more public scripts like the Res Gestae. The play opens a dialogue about literary versions of history and about the legitimacy of those accounts. Through an innovative combination of intertextual analysis and cultural memory theory, the book elucidates the roles that literature and the literary manipulation of memory play in negotiating the transition between the Julio-Claudian and Flavian regimes. It thus claims for the Octavia a central role in current debates over the ways in which Nero and his family were remembered, as well as the politics of literary and cultural memory in the early Roman Empire.
Stefano Rebeggiani
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190251819
- eISBN:
- 9780190251833
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190251819.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
A new reading of Statius’ main poem and its relationship with the cultural and political life at Rome under Domitian is given. This book studies in detail the poem’s view of power and its interaction ...
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A new reading of Statius’ main poem and its relationship with the cultural and political life at Rome under Domitian is given. This book studies in detail the poem’s view of power and its interaction with historical contexts. Written under Domitian and in the aftermath of the civil war of 69 CE, the Thebaid uses the veil of myth to reflect on the political reality of Imperial Rome. The poem presents itself to its audience and to the emperor as a lesson on effective kingship and a warning on the fragility of power. Rooted in a pessimistic view of human beings and human relationships, the Thebaid reflects on the harsh necessity of monarchical power as the only antidote to a world always on the verge of returning to chaos. In the absence of the gods, the fate of human communities lies in the hands of the individuals in power. Although humans, and especially kings, are fragile and often the prey of irrational passions, the Thebaid expresses the hope that an illuminated sovereign endowed with clementia [mercy] may offer a solution to the political crisis of the Roman Empire. Statius’ narrative also responds to Domitian’s problematic interaction with Nero, whom Domitian regarded as both a negative model and a source of inspiration. This book shows that the Thebaid is particularly close to the intellectual activities and political views formulated by groups of Roman aristocrats who survived Nero’s repression and that the poem is influenced by an initial phase in Domitian’s regime characterized by a positive relationship between the emperor and the Roman elite.Less
A new reading of Statius’ main poem and its relationship with the cultural and political life at Rome under Domitian is given. This book studies in detail the poem’s view of power and its interaction with historical contexts. Written under Domitian and in the aftermath of the civil war of 69 CE, the Thebaid uses the veil of myth to reflect on the political reality of Imperial Rome. The poem presents itself to its audience and to the emperor as a lesson on effective kingship and a warning on the fragility of power. Rooted in a pessimistic view of human beings and human relationships, the Thebaid reflects on the harsh necessity of monarchical power as the only antidote to a world always on the verge of returning to chaos. In the absence of the gods, the fate of human communities lies in the hands of the individuals in power. Although humans, and especially kings, are fragile and often the prey of irrational passions, the Thebaid expresses the hope that an illuminated sovereign endowed with clementia [mercy] may offer a solution to the political crisis of the Roman Empire. Statius’ narrative also responds to Domitian’s problematic interaction with Nero, whom Domitian regarded as both a negative model and a source of inspiration. This book shows that the Thebaid is particularly close to the intellectual activities and political views formulated by groups of Roman aristocrats who survived Nero’s repression and that the poem is influenced by an initial phase in Domitian’s regime characterized by a positive relationship between the emperor and the Roman elite.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226111872
- eISBN:
- 9780226111902
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226111902.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book presents an argument that Vergil's Aeneid, Lucan's Civil War, and Statius' Thebaid represent complex and distinctive responses to the socioeconomic mores of each poet's day. The distinction ...
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This book presents an argument that Vergil's Aeneid, Lucan's Civil War, and Statius' Thebaid represent complex and distinctive responses to the socioeconomic mores of each poet's day. The distinction between reciprocal and commodity exchanges was basic to Roman society. In the Aeneid, Civil War, and Thebaid, commodity expressions for punishment resonate with other commodity language. The book also reviews the socioeconomic landscape of each poem, and then explores how the poets use economic language metaphorically to give insights into the thoughts and dispositions of their central characters. Additionally, it argues that the Aeneid shows Vergil longing for the late republican economic system; that Lucan voices skepticism of republican socioeconomic values and tentatively advocates the return to an earlier Roman order; and that Statius turns away from reflection upon a sociopolitical system to express concern for the perils of excessive individual desires.Less
This book presents an argument that Vergil's Aeneid, Lucan's Civil War, and Statius' Thebaid represent complex and distinctive responses to the socioeconomic mores of each poet's day. The distinction between reciprocal and commodity exchanges was basic to Roman society. In the Aeneid, Civil War, and Thebaid, commodity expressions for punishment resonate with other commodity language. The book also reviews the socioeconomic landscape of each poem, and then explores how the poets use economic language metaphorically to give insights into the thoughts and dispositions of their central characters. Additionally, it argues that the Aeneid shows Vergil longing for the late republican economic system; that Lucan voices skepticism of republican socioeconomic values and tentatively advocates the return to an earlier Roman order; and that Statius turns away from reflection upon a sociopolitical system to express concern for the perils of excessive individual desires.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226111872
- eISBN:
- 9780226111902
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226111902.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter presents an overview of economic morality in Civil War, and also describes the three central characters: Caesar, Pompey, and Cato. Civil War lacks any transaction that even approaches ...
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This chapter presents an overview of economic morality in Civil War, and also describes the three central characters: Caesar, Pompey, and Cato. Civil War lacks any transaction that even approaches the apparent ordinariness of Dido's land purchase, and its relative scarcity of reciprocal exchange, even in its distorted forms, is balanced by a corresponding abundance of commodity exchange. The economic language of Lucan's dedication presents Nero as an oddly passive product of the shortsighted and self-interested striving that leads to civil war. The narrator of Civil War criticizes destructive trade, but at other points detaches commodity language from mercantile incontinentia for use in quantifying the waste of civil war. Lucan's thought also turns to the archetypal frugal Roman, Cato, as the last hope for recovering social order.Less
This chapter presents an overview of economic morality in Civil War, and also describes the three central characters: Caesar, Pompey, and Cato. Civil War lacks any transaction that even approaches the apparent ordinariness of Dido's land purchase, and its relative scarcity of reciprocal exchange, even in its distorted forms, is balanced by a corresponding abundance of commodity exchange. The economic language of Lucan's dedication presents Nero as an oddly passive product of the shortsighted and self-interested striving that leads to civil war. The narrator of Civil War criticizes destructive trade, but at other points detaches commodity language from mercantile incontinentia for use in quantifying the waste of civil war. Lucan's thought also turns to the archetypal frugal Roman, Cato, as the last hope for recovering social order.