Poetry and Civil War in Lucan's Bellum Civile
Poetry and Civil War in Lucan's Bellum Civile
$120.00
USDThis book is a major literary reevaluation of Lucan's epic poem, the Bellum Civile ("The Civil War"). Its main purpose is to bring out the implications of one basic premise: this poem is not only about civil war, but uses the metaphor of civil war (i.e. self-destruction and internal discord) as the basis for the way it tells its story. Aimed primarily at classicists, the book offers a provocative new interpretation of most of the important issues in the poem, while attempting to avoid the glibness of generalization by concentrating on detailed readings of selected parts of the text.
- Little else available on Lucan
- Short description: major re-evaluation, provocative and persuasive, of a central figure in the history of Latin epic
- Lucan was a roman poet, born in AD 39 and forced to commit suicide by Nero in AD 65. He wrote an epic poem on the civil war between Julius and Pompey
Reviews & endorsements
"It has been a long time since any work has so provoked my thoughts on Latin epic....I hope this is not the last published work of Jamie Masters." Martha A. Davis, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"...an absolutely brilliant reinterpretation of Lucan's poem that will surely restore Lucan to a position of positive prominence in the history of Latin literature and convince even the most recalcitrant of us to reread and reconsider our views of one long thought to be a maverick among Latin epic poets who seemingly did not conform to humanist canons of propriety and taste." Ex Libris
Product details
March 1992Hardback
9780521414609
288 pages
223 × 144 × 23 mm
0.464kg
Available
Table of Contents
- List of maps
- Preface
- 1. Caesar at the Rubicon
- 2. Massilian compilation
- 3. Ilerda
- 4. Appius and the Delphic oracle
- 5. The Thessalian excursus
- 6. Erictho
- 7. The endlessness of the Civil War
- Bibliography
- Index.
