Lucretius and the late Republic : an essay in Roman intellectual history /
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The crisis Rome experienced in the last decades of the Republic was intellectual as well as political, social and military. This crisis was marked by conflicts over values and a growing dichotomy between words and things, as a result of which the key words of the Roman tradition lost their anchor in the inherited, commonly-held percepetion of reality known as the mos maiorum . The crisis was therefore also one of the Latin language itself. The monograph explores this thesis in discussions of the background and character of Roman intellectual history, the nature of the mos maiorum , the relationship of the Late Republic to the Mediterranean world, the roles of Julius Caesar, Catullus, Cicero, and Lucretius in the crisis, and its Augustan and later consequences. The major portion of the discussion is devoted to Lucretius, because the De Rerum Natura is the clearest example of the extent and nature of the crisis, from which it took its origin and gained its form and purpose. A principal goal of the essay is to relate Lucretius to the structure of Roman literary and intellectual history. It finds the explanation for his work in the nature of that history and the characteristic Roman modes and categories of thought rather than in the general history fo Greek philosophy. It also offers a new explanation of the relationshiop of the authors of the Late Republic to each other. In so doing, it indicates the foundation for a new history of Roman literature and a new conception of the reality and importance of the intellectual history of Rome.
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1 online resource (viii, 87 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 80-83) and index. :
9789004328259 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Reading the Ovidian heroine : Metamorphoses commentaries, 1100-1618 /
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This study investigates the reception of Ovid's heroines in Metamorphoses commentaries written between 1100 and 1618. The Ovidian heroine offers a telling window onto medieval and early modern clerical constructions of gender and selfhood. In the context of classical representations of the feminine, the book examines Ovid's engagement of the heroine to explore problems of intentionality. The second part of the study presents commentaries by such clerics as William of Orléans, the \'Vulgate\' commentator, Thomas Walsingham, and Raphael Regius, illustrating the reception of the Ovidian heroine in medieval France and England as well as in Renaissance Italy and Germany. The works analyzed here show that clerical readings of the feminine in Ovid reflect greater heterogeneity than is commonly alleged. Both moralizing summaries and Latin editions used as schooltexts are discussed.
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1 online resource (xxviii, 187 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-183) and index. :
9789004351011 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ancient stepmothers : myth, misogyny, and reality /
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Ancient Stepmothers is the first full-length study of the stepmother in Graeco-Roman antiquity. Several perspectives are covered: literary, historical and sociological, the last-mentioned making use of comparative material from modern studies of stepfamilies. The portrayal of the stepmother in myth and literature is thoroughly explored. The historical background in Athens and Rome is examined with a view to determining the relationship between fiction and real life. The book makes an important contribution to the study of both literary history and family relationships: in particular, it sheds light on attitudes to women, the portrayal of the stepmother being an outstanding illustration of misogynistic prejudice. It will also interest sociologists wishing to place studies of the contemporary stepfamily in a wider historical context: for this reason, all Greek and Latin is translated into English.
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1 online resource (xii, 288 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 272-277) and indexes. :
9789004329485 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Poetic memory : allusion in the poetry of Callimachus and the Metamorphoses of Ovid /
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This book explores Callimachus' allusive practice in his Aetia prologue and Hymns 4, 5, and 6, and in Ovid's Metamorphoses . The study includes an overview of modern approaches to poetic allusion, a close (re-)examination of the lexical allusions in the Aetia's and Metamorphoses' prologues, extensive examinations of allusive techniques within selections of these works, the poets' use of \'signposting\' and \'authorization\' techniques, and the relationship between allusion and genre.
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1 online resource (viii, 218 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-206) and indexes. :
9789047406624 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Paralysin cave : impotence, perception, and text in the Satyrica of Petronius /
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This volume explores the literary representation of male sexual dysfunction and discusses the natural and supernatural elements of an ancient folk medical system based on conceptual associations between male sexuality and specific plants, animals and minerals. The work incorporates material from both literary and scientific sources to draw parallels between ancient and modern paradigms of healing. The literary depiction of attempts to remedy impotence demonstrates how an accessibility to cures contributes to the sexual and social reintegration of the sufferer. The Satyrica of Petronius echoes this process by means of the text itself and so effects similar ends. The book provides new insights into literature and the ancient belief systems underlying it with its original and integrative approach to disciplines such as philology, botany, mineralogy, zoology and medicine.
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Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1993. :
1 online resource (x, 272 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-244) and indexes. :
9789004330962 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The mythic voice of Statius : power and politics in the Thebaid /
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This is the first thematic study of Statius' Thebaid to be published in monograph form in English in the past twenty years. It examines in detail the thematic design and intent of the Thebaid and considers the question of its contemporary relevance. The book focuses on the central theme of power - how it is exercised on the supernatural and human levels and the consequences of its pursuit and abuse in terms of the human condition. An ensuing discussion explores the political undercurrents of the epic. This discussion is in four main parts: (1) 'Use and Abuse of Supernatural Power'; (2) 'Pursuit and Abuse of Monarchal Power'; (3) 'Consequences of the Abuse of Power'; and (4) 'Political Relevance to Contemporary Rome'. The views expressed represent a fundamental departure from previous studies and constitute a critical reassessment of the Thebaid . The provision of translations makes the book accessible to the Latinless reader.
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1 online resource (xiv, 198 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 184-190) and indexes. :
9789004329416 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
City, countryside, and the spatial organization of value in classical antiquity /
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The third in a series that explores cultural and ethical values in Classical antiquity, this volume examines the dichotomy between 'city' and 'country' in ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Fourteen papers address a variety of topics on this theme, and include a variety of methodological approaches-archaeological, iconographic, literary and philosophical. The book demonstrates that, despite a common rhetoric of polarity in antiquity that tended to construct city and countryside as very distinct, oppositional categories, there was far less consistency (and far more nuance) about the ideologies felt to inhere in each.
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1 online resource (x, 384 pages) : illustrations, maps, plans. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047409182 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.