The author's approach to Roman epic is interpretative; the reader is invited to study a choice of typical texts, from the beginnings to the end of Antiquity. Famous poets are given the attention they deserve, but also some minor authors are discovered as precious 'missing links' between the ages. Special heed is paid to intertextual relationships between different epochs, cultures, literary genres, linguistic and literary patterns. The book is meant for students and teachers of classical and modern literatures, but also for all those interested in the history of literary genres and cultural...

This comprehensive study of Cicero's style discusses differences of literary genres (Ch.1), nuances of style within individual works (Ch.2), and chronological development (Ch.3), followed by an account of fixed elements typical of Cicero's diction (Ch.4). Finally, selected interpretative studies demonstrate the relationship of style and context in the orations, with special regard to literary form and political or moral content (Ch.5). The book concludes with an Epilogue on the De oratore and the culture of speech. Contrary to inveterate prejudices, Cicero does not confine himself to a...

The most important medium of Seneca's Lebenskunst is language. We first change the meaning of words through philosophical reflection; then we can change ourselves through language. Each chapter in this book takes linguistic or stylistic observations in texts as starting point (e.g. metaphors from the domains of health, finance, and sea-faring). Topics are man's self-definition in time and place and his relation to property, learning, and tradition. Single words and rhetorical patterns guide us in constructing an inner world and to find our own identity. Texts in Latin and in...

Die deutsche Literatur hat sich an mehreren Traditionen gebildet: an der christlichen, an der griechisch-lateinischen und an den aus ihr hervorgegangenen europaischen Traditionen. War die Bedeutung der antiken Komponente vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert unubersehbar gross, ist sie auch in dem hier betrachteten Zeitraum, dem 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, nicht zu unterschatzen. Den Zugang zu dem in der vorliegenden Bibliographie alphabetisch nach Autoren geordneten Material eroffnen moderne und antike Stichworter sowie ein Index der Verfassernamen."