Roman And Greek Imperial Epic

From Homer to the moon, this volume explores the epic journey across space and time in the ancient world.

Roman epic is both index and critique of the foundational culture of the western world. It is one of Europe's most persistent and determinant poetic modes. In this book distinguished Latinists examine the formation and evolution of Roman epic from its beginnings in the third century BC to the high Italian Renaissance. Featuring a variety of methodologies and approaches, it clarifies the literary importance and political and moral meaning of Roman epic.

This is the first book-length study of the reception of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica in the epic poems of Silius Italicus (Punica), Statius (Thebaid, Achilleid), and Claudian (De Raptu Proserpinae). It sheds new light on the importance of Valerius' poem and enhances our understanding of the intertextual richness of imperial Latin epic. The readings offered in this book provide new evidence to support the view that Valerius' Argonautica predates the Punica and Thebaid, thus helping to clarify the literary history of the Flavian period (69-96 CE). Stover shows how Silius, Statius, and Claudian use programmatic allusion to the Argonautica to present themselves as Valerius' epic successors. Silius, Statius, and Claudian rework Valerian material to achieve various effects; analysis of these effects is organized by the primary function of allusive interactions, such as 'reversal', 'enrichment', and 'contrast'. This study is essential for scholars of Latin epic poetry. Yet the Greek and Latin of its close readings are translated, making it accessible to all readers interested in intertextuality, comparative literature, and other related topics.

Provides the first literary and cultural-historical analysis of the most important third-century Greek epic, Quintus' Posthomerica.

Paul explores the relationship between films set in the ancient world and the classical epic tradition, arguing that there is a connection between the genres. Through this careful consideration of how epic manifests itself through different periods and cultures, we learn how cinema makes a claim to be a modern vehicle for a very ancient tradition.

The epic genre has at its heart a fascination with the horror of viewing death. Epic heroes have active visual power, yet become objects, turned into monuments, watched by two main audiences: the gods above and the women on the sidelines. This stimulating, ambitious study investigates the theme of vision in Greek and Latin epic from Homer to Nonnus, bringing the edges of epic into dialogue with celebrated moments (the visual confrontation of Hector and Achilles, the failure of Turnus' gaze), revealing epic as massive assertion of authority and fractured representation. Helen Lovatt demonstrates the complexity of epic constructions of gender: from Apollonius' Medea toppling Talos with her eyes to Parthenopaeus as object of desire. She discusses mortals appropriating the divine gaze, prophets as both penetrative viewers and rape victims, explores the divine authority of epic ecphrasis, and exposes the way that heroic bodies are fragmented and fetishised.

In the light of recent scholarly work on tragic patterns and allusions in Flavian epic, the publication of a volume exclusively dedicated to the relationship between Flavian epic and tragedy is timely. The volume, concentrating on the poetic works of Silius Italicus, Statius and Valerius Flaccus, consists of eight original contributions, two by the editors themselves and a further six by experts on Flavian epic. The volume is preceded by an introduction by the editors and it concludes with an ‘Afterword’ by Carole E. Newlands. Among key themes analysed are narrative patterns, strategies or type-scenes that appear to derive from tragedy, the Aristotelian notions of hamartia and anagnorisis, human and divine causation, the ‘transfer’ of individual characters from tragedy to epic, as well as instances of tragic language and imagery. The volume at hand showcases an array of methodological approaches to the question of the presence of tragic elements in epic. Hence, it will be of interest to scholars and students in the area of Classics or Literary Studies focusing on such intergeneric and intertextual connections; it will be also of interest to scholars working on Flavian epic or on the ancient reception of Greek and Roman tragedy.