Lucan's Imperial World: The Bellum Civile in its Contemporary Contexts

by Laura Zientek (Editor), Mark Thorne (Editor)

Overview

These new essays comprise the first collective study of Lucan and his epic poem that focuses specifically on points of contact between his text and the cultural, literary, and historical environments in which he lived and wrote. The Bellum Civile, Lucan's poetic narrative of the monumental civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey Magnus, explores the violent foundations of the Roman principate and the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The poem, composed more than a century later during the reign of Nero, thus recalls the past while being very much a product of its time.

This volume offers innovative readings that seek to interpret Lucan's epic in terms of the contemporary politics, philosophy, literature, rhetoric, geography, and cultural memory of the author's lifetime. In doing so, these studies illuminate how approaching Lucan and his text in light of their contemporary environments enriches our understanding of author, text, and context individually and in conversation with each other.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350097438
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	02/06/2020
Series:	Criminal Practice Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Laura Zientek is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Reed College, Oregon, USA. Her research focuses on the intersection of landscape representation and natural philosophy in Roman epic poetry, as well as on poetic treatments of natural and built environments.

Mark Thorne is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Luther College, Iowa, USA. His work centres on Lucan and other representations of the Roman civil wars from the perspectives of cultural memory and trauma studies, with a special interest in the memory of Cato Uticensis in the early Roman empire.
Laura Zientek is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Brigham Young University, USA. Her research focuses on the intersection of landscape representation and natural philosophy in Roman epic poetry, as well as on poetic treatments of natural and built environments and the sublime as a multi-sensory aesthetic experience.
Mark Thorne is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Brigham Young University, USA. His work centres on Lucan and other representations of the Roman civil wars from the perspectives of cultural memory and trauma studies, with a special interest in the memory of Cato Uticensis in the early Roman empire.

Table of Contents

Contributors
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

Introduction: Lucan and His World, Laura Zientek and Mark Thorne

PART I: LUCAN AND CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS AND TRADITIONS
1. Imperial Ethics and the Individual in Lucan and Seneca's Letters, Paul Roche, University of Sydney, Australia
2. Lucanus mirabatur adeo scripta Flacci: Lucan and Persius, Thomas Biggs, University of Georgia, USA
3. Cicero, Lucan, and Rhetorical Role-Play in Bellum Civile 7, Annette M. Baertschi, Bryn Mawr College, USA

PART II: THE NATURAL WORLD AND GEOGRAPHY IN THE NERONIAN PERIOD
4. Mining and Morality in Lucan and Seneca, Laura Zientek, Reed College, USA
5. Even Natura Nods: Lucan's Alternate Explanations of the Syrtes (9.303–18), James Calvin Taylor, Harvard University, USA
6. World Geography, Roman History, and the Failure to Incorporate Parthia in Lucan's Bellum Civile, Mauro Serena, University of Reading, UK

PART III: CATO'S NERONIAN NACHLEBEN
7. Lucan's Cato and Popular (Mis)conceptions of Stoicism , David H. Kaufman, Transylvania University, USA
8. Sage, Soldier, Politician, and Benefactor: Cato in Seneca and Lucan, Francesca D'Alessandro Behr, University of Houston, USA

PART IV: BACK TO THE FUTURE: REPUBLIC AND EMPIRE
9. Lucan and the Specter of Sulla in Julio-Claudian Rome, Julia Mebane, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
10. Re-Membering the Palatine in Lucan's Bellum Civile, Jesse Weiner, Hamilton College, USA
11. Lucan's Nostalgia and the Infection of Memory, E. V. Mulhern, Temple University
12. Lucan's Neronian Res Publica Restituta, Andrew McClellan, San Diego State University, USA

Notes
Bibliography
Index Locorum