Epic Lessons: An Introduction to Ancient Didactic Poetry

ISBN-13: 9780415088978 / Angielski / Twarda / 1996 / 282 str.

Peter Toohey;Toohey Peter

Opis

This work presents a comprehensive survey of the major surviving examples of Greek and Roman didactic poetry: Hesiod's Works and Days, Lucretius' On the Universe, Virgil's Georgics and Ovid's Art of Love amongst others. If didactic epic has one defining characteristic, it is instruction. All these poems were aimed at teaching a student about a concrete topic. At the same time, their poetic form makes these verse lessons highly readable pieces of literature. This volume understands reading didactic poetry as more than just teaching; it is also a leisure-time activity. The author balances a factual introduction to the literature with an interpretation of the texts.

Recenzje

'This book offers a comprehensive survey of the major surviving examples of Greek and Roman didactic poetry ... I also enjoyed the opportunity to delve into Nicander and other less frequently read writers and found that they provided an illuminating context for more familiar works.' I Hilary Walters, Loughborough Grammar School

Spis treści

Introduction. 1. Who Reads Didactic Epic? 2. Word of Mouth. Orality and Didactic Poetry from Hesiod to Empedocles 3. The Universe as a Book. Alexandrian Literacy and the Poems of Aratus and Nicander 4. Roman Renewal. Cicero and Lucretius 5. Politics, Power and Play. Polyphony in Virgil's Georgics and Ovid's Fasti 6. Amusements for a Smoky December. Horace on Poetry and Ovid on Eros 7. Humans, Nature and God. Epic Lessons in the First Century 8. Resisting Instinct. Hunting, Fishing, Science, and God 9. Didactic Dinners. Instruction in Narrative Epic and in the Novel 10. A Literary History of Leisure? The Didactic Epic. Bibliography.

O autorze

Peter Toohey is Associate Professor in Classics and Ancient History at the University of New England, New South Wales. He is the author of Reading Epic: An Introduction to the Ancient Narratives (1992), and has edited, with Mark Golden Reconstructing the Past: Historicism, Periodisation and the Ancient World (1996).