Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry: Genre, Tradition and Individuality

289 Pages·2004·4.126 MB·English

by  Monica R. Gale

LATIN EPIC AND DIDACTIC POETRY

LATIN
EPIC AND DIDACTIC
POETRY
Genre, Tradition and Individuality
Edited by
Monica Gale
Contributors:
Ray Clare, Ceri Davies, Monica Gale,
Bruce Gibson, Roger Green, Philip Hardie,
Stephen Harrison, Andrew Laird, Llewelyn Morgan,
Damien Nelis, Catherine Ware
The Classical Press of Wales
First published in 2004.
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© 2004 The contributors
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The Classical Press of Wales, an independent venture, was founded in 1993, initially to support
the work of classicists and ancient historians in Wales and their collaborators from further afield.
More recently it has published work initiated by scholars internationally . While retaining a special
loyalty to Wales and the Celtic countries, the Press welcomes scholarly contributions from all parts
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CONTENTS
Page
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on contributors ix
Introduction: Genre, tradition and individuality xi
Monica Gale (Trinity College, Dublin)
Part I: Framing margins: Epic, didactic and related genres
1. Getting the measure of heroes: The dactylic hexameter and
its detractors 1
Llewelyn Morgan (Brasenose College, Oxford)
2. Politian’s Ambra and reading epic didactically
Andrew Laird (University of Warwick) 27
3. The story of us: A narratological analysis of Lucretius’
De Rerum Natura 49
Monica Gale (Trinity College, Dublin)
4. From didactic to epic: Georgics 2.458–3.48 73
Damien Nelis (Trinity College, Dublin)
Part II: Genre and tradition: Virgil and after
5. Virgil’s Corycius senex and Nicander’s Georgica:
Georgics 4.116–148 109
Stephen Harrison (Corpus Christi College, Oxford)
6. Tradition and originality: Allusion in Valerius Flaccus’
Lemnian episode 125
Ray Clare (University of Leeds)
7. The repetitions of Hypsipyle 149
Bruce Gibson (University of Liverpool)
8. Claudian: The epic poet in the prefaces 181
Catherine Ware (Trinity College, Dublin)
v
Contents
Part III: Receptions: Reinventing classical epic
9. Approaching Christian epic: The preface of Juvencus 203
Roger Green (University of Glasgow)
10. Virgilian imperialism, original sin and Fracastoro’s Syphilis 223
Philip Hardie (Corpus Christi College, Oxford)
11. The Aeneid and twentieth-century Welsh poetry 235
Ceri Davies (University of Wales Swansea)
Index locorum 253
General index 261
vi vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As noted in the introduction below, the present volume began life as a panel
forming part of the first Celtic Conference in Classics, held at the National
University of Ireland, Maynooth, in September 2000. I am grateful to the
local organizers, David Scourfield and his colleagues in the Department
of Ancient Classics, and to all who contributed to the Roman Epic and
Didactic panel, either by offering a paper or by participating in the lively
discussion which followed. In addition to his role as conference organizer,
David Sco urfield discussed earlier drafts of the introduction and of my
own paper with me, as well as helping in numerous less tangible ways; it
is a pleasure, as always, to thank him for his advice and encouragement.
Above all, this book owes it existence to Anton Powell, who not only invited
me to take part in the conference but saw the present work through from
inception to publication. His generosity, patience and unfailing enthusiasm
for the project have made it a pleasure to work with him.
M.R.G.
December 2003
vi vii
ix
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Ray Clare is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds. He is the author
of The Path of the Argo: Language, imagery and narrative in the Argonautica
of Apollonius Rhodius (Cambridge, 2002) and articles on Homer, Apollo-
nius Rhodius, Catullus and Virgil. His principal research interests lie in the
fields of Hellenistic poetry and Greek/Roman epic. He is currently writing
a book on the major Alexandrian poets, for publication by Duckworth
Press as part of their Classical Literature and Society series.
Ceri Davies is Professor of Classics at University of Wales, Swansea.
His main research interests are in the Latin writings of the Renais-
sance, especially in Wales, and in classical reception in Welsh-language
literature. His books include Rhagymadroddion a Chyflwyniadau Lladin,
1551–1632 (University of Wales Press,1980), Latin Writers of the Renais-
sance (University of Wales Press, 1981), Welsh Literature and the Classical
Tradition (University of Wales Press, 1995), John Davies o Fallwyd (Gwasg
Pantycelyn, 2001). He is currently working on an edition of John Prise,
Historiae Brytannicae Defensio (1573).
Monica Gale is Senior Lecturer in Classics at Trinity College, Dublin.
She is the author of Myth and Poetry in Lucretius (Cambridge, 1994), Virgil
on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the didactic tradition
(Cambridge, 2000) and articles on Lucretius, Virgil and Propertius.
Bruce Gibson is Lecturer in Classics in the School of Archaeology,
Classics and Egyptology in the University of Liverpool. He has published
on various Latin authors, including Horace, Ovid, Statius and Apuleius,
and has recently completed a commentary on Statius, Silvae 5. He is
currently working on Pliny’s Panegyricus and on the ancient novel and
historiography.
Roger Green is an enthusiast for later Latin literature, with a particular
interest in the reception of Virgil and other classical poets in Late Antiquity
and Mediaeval and Renaissance Europe. His publications include major
studies of the works of Ausonius, Augustine’s On Christian Teaching,
selected pastoral poetry of the Middle Ages and poems of the Scots
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