Statius Thebaid And The Poetics Of Civil War

Download or read book Statius' Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War written by Charles McNelis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-02-08 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study focuses on ways in which Statius' epic Thebaid, a poem about the civil war between Oedipus' sons Eteocles and Polynices, reflects the theme of internal discord in its narrative strategies. At the same time that Statius reworks the Homeric and Virgilian epic traditions, he engages with Hellenistic poetic ideals as exemplified by Callimachus and the Roman Callimachean poets, especially Ovid. The result is a tension between the impulse towards the generic expectations of warfare and the desire for delay and postponement of such conflict. Ultimately, Statius adheres to the mythic paradigm of the mutual fratricide, but he continues to employ competing strategies that call attention to the fictive nature of any project of closure and conciliation. In the process, the poem offers a new mode of epic closure that emphasises individual means of resolution.

Download or read book Statius' Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War written by Charles McNelis and published by . This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Significant new reading of the epic which argues that its narrative strategies reflect the theme of internal discord.

Download or read book Thebaid written by Statius and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Thebaid, a Latin epic in twelve books by Statius (c. 45–96 C. E.) reexamines events following the abdication of Oedipus, focusing on the civil war between the brothers Eteocles, King of Thebes, and Polynices, who comes at the head of an army from Argos to claim his share of royal power. The poem is long—each of the twelve books comprises over eight hundred lines—and complex, and it exploits a broad range of literary works, both Greek and Latin. Severely curtailed though he was by the emperor Domitian and his Reign of Terror, Statius nevertheless created a meditation on autocratic rule that is still of political interest today. Popular in its own time and much admired in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance—most notably by Dante and Chaucer—the poem fell into obscurity and has, for readers of English, been poorly served by translators. Statius composed his poem in dactylic hexameters, the supreme verse form in antiquity. In his hands, this venerable line is flexible, capable of subtle emphases and dramatic shifts in tempo; it is an expressive, responsive medium. In this new and long-awaited translation the poet Jane Wilson Joyce employs a loose, six-beat line in her English translation, which allows her to reveal something of the original rhythm and of the interplay between sentence structure and verse framework. The clarity of Joyce's translation highlights the poem's superb versification, sophisticated use of intertextuality, and bold formal experimentation and innovation. A substantial introduction and annotations make this epic accessible to students of all levels.

Download or read book Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic written by Antony Augoustakis and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-04-18 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection addresses the role of ritual representations and religion in the epic poems of the Flavian period (69-96 CE): Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Silius Italicus' Punica, Statius' Thebaid, and the unfinished Achilleid. Drawing on various modern studies on religion and ritual, and the relationship between literature and religion in the Greco-Roman world, it explores how we can interpret the poets' use of the relationship between gods and humans, cults and rituals, religious activities, and the role of the seer / prophet and his identification with poetry. Divided into three major sections, the volume includes essays on the most important religious activities (prophecy or augury, prayers and hymns) and the relationship between religion and political power under the Flavian emperors. It also addresses specific episodes in Flavian epic which focus on religious activities associated with the dead and the Underworld, such as purification, necromancy, katabasis, suicide, and burial. It finally explores the role of gender in ritual and religion.

Download or read book Later Greek Epic and the Latin Literary Tradition written by Katerina Carvounis and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-11-07 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume offers an innovative and systematic exploration of the diverse ways in which Later Greek Epic interacts with the Latin literary tradition. Taking as a starting point the premise that it is probable for the Greek epic poets of the Late Antiquity to have been familiar with leading works of Latin poetry, either in the original or in translation, the contributions in this book pursue a new form of intertextuality, in which the leading epic poets of the Imperial era (Quintus of Smyrna, Triphiodorus, Nonnus, and the author of the Orphic Argonautica) engage with a range of models in inventive, complex, and often covert ways. Instead of asking, in other words, whether Greek authors used Latin models, we ask how they engaged with them and why they opted for certain choices and not for others. Through sophisticated discussions, it becomes clear that intertexts are usually systems that combine ideology, cultural traditions, and literary aesthetics in an inextricable fashion. The book will prove that Latin literature, far from being distinct from the Greek epic tradition of the imperial era, is an essential, indeed defining, component within a common literary and ideological heritage across the Roman empire.

Download or read book Intertextuality in Flavian Epic Poetry written by Neil Coffee and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-12-16 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays reaffirms the central importance of adopting an intertextual approach to the study of Flavian epic poetry and shows, despite all that has been achieved, just how much still remains to be done on the topic. Most of the contributions are written by scholars who have already made major contributions to the field, and taken together they offer a set of state of the art contributions on individual topics, a general survey of trends in recent scholarship, and a vision of at least some of the paths work is likely to follow in the years ahead. In addition, there is a particular focus on recent developments in digital search techniques and the influence they are likely to have on all future work in the study of the fundamentally intertextual nature of Latin poetry and on the writing of literary history more generally.

Download or read book The Epic Gaze written by Helen Lovatt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-27 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Re-envisions epic from Homer to Nonnus through theories of the gaze.