Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry: Genre, Tradition and Individuality
How is it possible for a poet to find his own individual voice, when he is writing in a tradition so venerable and so constrained by convention as Roman epic? How do poets working in related genres - particularly didactic - conceptualize their relationship to the main epic tradition? The eleven essays in this volume, by leading scholars in the field of Roman poetry and its post-Classical receptions, consider some of the strategies which writers from Lucretius onwards have employed in negotiating their relationship with their literary forebears, and staking out a place for their own work within a tradition stretching back to Hesiod and Homer.
Monica Gale has written extensively on the poetry of the Late Republican and Augustan periods, with a particular focus on questions of genre and intertextuality.
Author: Monica R. Gale
Format: Hardback, 262 pages, 160mm x 240mm
Published: 2004, Classical Press of Wales, United Kingdom
Genre: Literary Criticism
How is it possible for a poet to find his own individual voice, when he is writing in a tradition so venerable and so constrained by convention as Roman epic? How do poets working in related genres - particularly didactic - conceptualize their relationship to the main epic tradition? The eleven essays in this volume, by leading scholars in the field of Roman poetry and its post-Classical receptions, consider some of the strategies which writers from Lucretius onwards have employed in negotiating their relationship with their literary forebears, and staking out a place for their own work within a tradition stretching back to Hesiod and Homer.
Monica Gale has written extensively on the poetry of the Late Republican and Augustan periods, with a particular focus on questions of genre and intertextuality.