Individual epics have been catered for by many scholarly books. However, few of these are ever easily accessible to the student of ancient literarure in translation or to the general reader. This book addresses the needs of these readers. Peter Toohey surveys all the major classical epics: he begins with Homer and concludes with an overview of the development of late ancient epic and of the interface between epic and the novel. Reading Epic offers an interpretation of the meaning (not simply a description of the story) of these poems within the likely intellectual constraints of the era in...

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...