In this volume Philip Hardie provides an introduction to Virgil's three major works, a survey of changing critical approaches to the poems during the twentieth century, and a bibliographical guide for further study. A final section on style, language and metre offers a case-study in a close reading of a section of the Aeneid. The book communicates a sense of why reading Virgil matters and how the study of this author is always open to new ideas and fresh insights. No knowledge of Latin is presumed.

This major study of Ovid's poetry is the first significant analysis of the importance of illusion and the conjuring presence throughout his work. Modern theoretical approaches examine the topic from the points of view of poetics and rhetoric, aesthetics, the psychology of desire, philosophy, religion, and politics. There are also case studies of the reception of Ovid's poetics of illusion in Renaissance and modern literature and art. The book will interest those studying Latin and later European literature. Foreign language sections are accompanied by English translations.

This volume comprises an edition, with introduction and commentary, of the first book of Horace's Epistles. These are imaginary letters in verse, and represent the Roman poet's most original contribution to Latin literature. The introduction discusses poetic form and style, the addressees of the letters and the main topics, as well as the layout of the poems and their organization within Book I. The commentary gives ample help with the language, paying particular attention to its poetic qualities.

These two volumes provide a commentary, with text, on Virgil's Georgics, a poem in four books probably written between 35 and 29 BC. The introduction, in Volume 1, treats the poem's historical background and its relationship to the early years of Augustan Rome, Virgil's use of prior literary material, his stylistic and metrical expertise, and questions of poetic structure. There is also a section interpreting the poem in light of recent scholarship, which seeks to consider the poem as part of the broad unity of Virgil's career, rather than from a narrow didactic approach. A new Latin text of...

Sophocles? Trachiniae is, in the editor's words, ?a subtle and sophisticated play about primitive emotions?. It is also a play which presents problems to a modern audience. Making full use of recent Sphoclean scholarship, Mrs Easterling attempts in her Introduction a detailed literary analysis of Trachiniae, helping the reader to understand better its intricate structure, the treatment of Deianira and Heracles, and the meaning of the final scenes. The notes in the Commentary of grammar, syntax and style include material which will be helpful to comparative beginners in the language, but the...

These two volumes provide a commentary, with text, on Virgil's Georgics, a poem in four books probably written between 35 and 29 BC. The introduction, in Volume 1, treats the poem's historical background and its relationship to the early years of Augustan Rome, Virgil's use of prior literary material, his stylistic and metrical expertise, and questions of poetic structure. There is also a section interpreting the poem in light of recent scholarship, which seeks to consider the poem as part of the broad unity of Virgil's career, rather than from a narrow didactic approach. A new Latin text of...

This is the first major single-volume edition in English of Book IX of Virgil's Aeneid, a pivotal part of the poem that contains the nocturnal interlude of the ill-fated expedition of the young Trojans Nisus and Euryalus. The volume includes a detailed linguistic and thematic commentary on the text, and an introduction consisting of a series of interpretative essays on the book. It offers invaluable help to students of Virgil and will also be of interest to professional scholars of Latin literature.

This book is a critically sophisticated introduction to the epic tradition of the early Roman empire, specifically the epic poems of Ovid, Lucan, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, and Silius Italicus. It explores the use that they all make of the great Augustan epic of Virgil, the Aeneid. Instead of being feeble imitations of the great classic (a common critical viewpoint), these poems are shown to be dynamic works that use the Virgilian model creatively to reflect the moral and political issues of their own day. All Latin is translated.

Lucretius' didactic poem De rerum natura ('On the Nature of Things') is an impassioned and visionary presentation of the materialist philosophy of Epicurus, and one of the most powerful poetic texts of antiquity. After its rediscovery in 1417 it became a controversial and seminal work in successive phases of literary history, the history of science, and the Enlightenment. In this 2007 Cambridge Companion experts in the history of literature, philosophy and science discuss the poem in its ancient contexts and in its reception both as a literary text and as a vehicle for progressive ideas. The...

A companion to one of the greatest writers of classical antiquity, and arguably the single most influential ancient poet for post-classical literature and culture, is long overdue. Chapters by leading authorities discuss the backgrounds and contexts for Ovid, the individual works, and his influence on later literature and art. Coverage of essential information is combined with exciting new critical approaches.