Academic literature on the topic 'Epic poetry, history and criticism'
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Journal articles on the topic "Epic poetry, history and criticism"
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Leporati, Matthew. "New Formalism in the Classroom: Re-Forming Epic Poetry in Wordsworth and Blake." Humanities 8, no. 2 (May 20, 2019): 100. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h8020100.
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Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in “New Formalism,” a close attention to textual language and structure that departs from the outdated and regressive stances of old formalisms (especially “New Criticism”) by interrogating the connections between form, history, and culture. This article surveys the contributions of New Formalism to Romanticism studies and applies its techniques to two canonical texts, suggesting that New Formalism is useful both for literary criticism and teaching literature. Opening with a survey of New Formalist theory and practices, and an overview of the theoretical innovations within New Formalism that have been made by Romantic scholars, the article applies New Formalist techniques to William Wordsworth’s Prelude and William Blake’s Milton: a Poem. Often read as poems seeking to escape the dispiriting failure of the French Revolution, these texts, I argue, engage the formal strategies of epic poetry to enter the discourse of the period, offering competing ways to conceive of the self in relation to history. Written during the Romantic epic revival, when more epics were composed than at any other time in history, these poems’ allusive dialogue with Paradise Lost and with the epic tradition more broadly allows them to think through the self’s relationship to the past, a question energized by the Revolution Controversy. I explore how Wordsworth uses allusion to link himself to Milton and ultimately Virgil, both privileging the past and thereby asserting the value of the present as a means of reiterating and restoring it; Blake, in contrast, alludes to Milton to query the very idea of dependence on the past. These readings are intertwined with my experiences of teaching, as I have employed New Formalism to encourage students to develop as writers in response to texts. An emphasis on form provides students with concrete modes of entry into discussing literature and allows instructors to help students identify and revise the forms and structures of their own writing in response to literature.
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Hershkowitz, Debra. "Patterns of Madness in Statius'Thebaid." Journal of Roman Studies 85 (November 1995): 52–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/301057.
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The traditional problem of Silver Latin poetry, and Silver Latin epic especially, has been its attraction to the extravagant, the grotesque, the infinite, the absurd, in other words, its propensity for excess. Statius'Thebaidin particular has been considered guilty of this offence. Recent criticism, however, has tended to see Silver Latin poetry not simply as being excessive, but as being deeply concerned with excess—cultural, ideological, and poetic. In this paper I hope to demonstrate that such a concern is a prominent characteristic of Statius'Thebaid, by exploring perhaps the most important manifestation of excess in the poem, madness. I will argue that theThebaid's excessiveness is fundamental and necessary, rather than detrimental, to its overall effect. But this paper, like theThebaid, will not concentrate exclusively on excess, for it will prove to be only the starting-point for a specific interpretation of the patterns of action and madness in theThebaid.
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Petrovic, Sonja. "Milovan Vojicic's epic songs about the Kosovo battle 1389 in the Milman Parry collection of oral literature." Prilozi za knjizevnost, jezik, istoriju i folklor, no. 75 (2009): 21–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/pkjif0975021p.
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In "The Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature" on Harvard University out of 131 epic songs recorded from Milovan Vojicic, several are dedicated to the popular theme of the Serbian and Balkan epic - the Kosovo Battle 1389 (Prince Lazar and Milos Obilic, The Defeat of Kosovo, ?he Kosovo Tragedy, The Kosovo Field after the Battle, The Death of Mother Jugovici, The Death of Pavle Orlovic at Kosovo, noted in 1933-34 in Nevesinje). The paper examines Vojicic?s Kosovo songs from the perspective of textual, stylistic and rhetoric criticism, poetics, and memory studies. An analysis of Milovan Vojicic?s Kosovo epic poetry leaves an impression of an active singer who has internalised tradition, and on this foundation composes new works in the traditional manner and "in the folk style". Vojicic is a literate singer who was familiar with the collections of Vuk Karadzic, Bogoljub Petranovic, the Matica Hrvatska, and the songbooks of the time. He did not hesitate to remake or rewrite songs from printed collections or periodicals, which means that his understanding of authorship was in the traditional spirit. Vojicic?s compilations lie on that delicate line between oral traditional and modern literary poetry; he is, naturally, not alone in this double role - the majority of the gusle-players who were his contemporaries could be similarly described. In the body of Kosovo epic poetry Vojicic?s songs stand out (The Death of Pavle Orlovic at Kosovo, The Kosovo Tragedy), where he abandons the printed model and achieves the kind of originality which is in fact part of tradition itself. Vojicic highly valued oral tradition and the opportunity to perform it, as part of the process of creating an image of himself as a folk gusle-player in modern terms. For this reason, his repertoire includes both old and new themes. They are sung according to the epic standard, but also in accordance with the modern standard of epic semi-literary works. In Vojicic?s world, oral tradition is an important component in viewing the historical past, and in perceiving reality and the singer?s place in it. The epic is a form of oral memory and the guardian of remembrance of past events; however it also provides a space for surveying and commenting on modern historical situations in a popularly accepted manner, at times in an ideological key, as seen in songs which gather together major historical events. This perception of the epic tradition and history is mirrored in the heterogeneity of the corpus and in the repertoire of songs, and is all a consequence of vastly changed conditions of origin, existence and acceptance, i.e. the consumption of oral works in the first half of the 20th century, in a process of interaction between literature and folklore.
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Watson, Patricia. "Axelson Revisited: the Selection of Vocabulary in Latin Poetry." Classical Quarterly 35, no. 2 (December 1985): 430–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009838800040271.
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Although it is now fifteen years since G. Williams' thorough-going criticism of B. Axelson'sUnpoetische Wörter, his discussion has failed to elicit the adverse response which might have been expected in view of the widespread influence exerted by the earlier work.The reason for this may be that Axelson's theory is so widely accepted that any refutation thereof may be disregarded. Yet surely Williams was right to point to the dangers of total reliance on statistics and to the necessity of considering the contexts in which words occur in Latin poetry. In this respect, he was not so much rejecting Axelson's work as pointing to its inadequacies: whereas Axelson would be content to label a word that occurs only rarely in poetry as ‘unpoetisch’, it is necessary, as Williams demonstrates, to take the further step of determining the effect that such a word has in a given context. This approach will be particularly helpful, for example, in the case ofparvulusat Virg.Aen.4.328, where the heightened pathos achieved by Virgil's use of a diminutive is better appreciated by the reader who is aware of the scarcity of diminutive adjectives in poetry and in epic above all. To recogniseparvulusas an ‘unpoetic word’, with Axelson, is the essential first step, but we should proceed a stage further to inquire what effect was intended by the employment of a form not normally found in elevated poetry.Of greater importance is Williams' rejection of the ‘hierarchy of genres’ theory, taken for granted by Axelson, that is, that Latin poetry may be divided into a number of higher- or lower-ranking genres and that the more elevated a genre the less unpoetic vocabulary it is liable to employ.
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Krasilnikova, E. I. "Historical Past and Historical-Cultural Heritage of Buryats as Reflected in Journal ‘Sibirskie Ogni’ (1920s-1980s): Memory Politics Aspect." Nauchnyi dialog 13, no. 4 (May 25, 2024): 408–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.24224/2227-1295-2024-13-4-408-429.
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The aim of the article is to characterize representations of the history and historicalcultural heritage of the Buryats in the pages of the Sibirskie Ogni journal from the early 1920s to the late 1980s in the context of state memory politics. The methodological framework of the study was the field of “Memory Studies.” Conclusions were drawn about the intense ideologization of the historical past of the Buryats on the pages of the Sibirskie Ogni journal at all stages of the Soviet period, as well as the journal's disregard for Buryat heritage associated with the traditions of Buddhist East. Six stages of representation were identified. In the first stage (1920s), Buryat authors freely wrote in the journal about Buryat history, expressed historical grievances against Russia, and sought recognition of the value of Buryat historical-cultural heritage. In the second stage (1930s), only articles by Russian authors about Buryat history in a critical tone were published in the journal. In the third stage (1940s-1950s), Sibirskie Ogni journal printed articles with crushing criticism of inconvenient versions of Buryat history presented in national literature. In the fourth stage (1960s-1970s), Buryat history was not discussed at all in the journal. In the fifth stage (1980s), a flourishing of Buryat culture was proclaimed under the influence of Soviet leadership. After the collapse of the USSR, much was rethought and perceived as a historical mistake. The Sibirskie Ogni journal began publishing articles again on Buryat literary traditions, epic poetry, etc.
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Taylor, Paul Beekman, and Sophie Bordier. "Chaucer and the Latin Muses." Traditio 47 (1992): 215–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0362152900007236.
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Muse of the uniqueHistorical fact, defending with silenceSome world of yours beholding, a silenceNo explosion can conquer, but a lover's yesHas been known to fill.W. H. Auden, ‘Homage to Clio’The Clio and Calliope evoked in the prohemia of Books II and III of Troilus and Criseyde are handily glossed in Chaucer editions as Muses of history and epic poetry respectively, but without citations of sources for these attributions. Stephen A. Barney's notes in The Riverside Chaucer suggest that in both evocations Chaucer is following Statius rather than Dante, and both he and B. A. Windeatt mention the marginal gloss ‘Cleo domina eloquentie’ in MS Harley 2392 of Troilus. Vincent J. DiMarco's note to the name Polymya in Anelida and Arcite identifies her as Muse of ‘sacred song,’ after her name-sense ‘she who is rich in hymns,’ but DiMarco does not elaborate on her pertinence to the context of the poem. There is little in current Chaucer criticism on schemes of attributes for the Muses; and yet without an idea of what values for the Muses Chaucer is drawing upon, it is difficult to appreciate their thematic force in Troilus.
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Begass, Christoph. "Kaiserkritik in Konstantinopel. Ein Spottepigramm auf Kaiser Anastasius bei Johannes Lydus und in der Anthologia Palatina." Millennium 14, no. 1 (February 23, 2017): 103–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/mill-2017-0004.
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Abstract In De magistratibus John Lydus refers to an epigram of eight lines insulting emperor Anastasius (491-518) as a money-collecting Charybdis. A similar version of this poem can be found in the Greek Anthology where it is divided into two epigrams of four lines each (AP XI 270 -71). In a first step, a critical edition of the epigram is established. On this basis it becomes clear that the earlier version referred to by Lydus comes close to the original poem. A detailed commentary reveals it as work of an able and witty poet who was familiar with both classical epic poetry and the formulas used in late antique laudatory epigrams. Looking at the historical background of the epigram, the paper highlights the history and varieties of Kaiserkritik in Late Antiquity and Byzantium, while another chapter takes a closer look at the far-reaching reforms undertaken by Anastasius which were heavily criticized by contemporaries. Taking into account the function of the epigram in Lydus’ work, it seems certain that John Lydus himself composed the poem to support his general criticism of the administrative reforms of both Anastasius and Justinian.
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Wenjia, Zhu. "Ideas of Statecraft in Philip Sidney’s <i>The Defense of Poesy</i>." Humanities and Social Sciences 12, no. 2 (March 7, 2024): 29–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.11648/j.hss.20241202.12.
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Philip Sidney was a famous courtier, soldier, poet and patron in Elizabethan England. As the best work of literary criticism in the English Renaissance, Sidney’s <i>The Defense of Poesy</i> not only contains rich poetic, philosophical and aesthetic values, but also permeates with comments and suggestions on current politics, implying advanced ideas of statecraft. Studying <i>The Defense of Poesy</i> in the context of social, political and cultural anxiety in England in the late 1570s and early 1580s, this article attempts to reveal Sidney’s creative motive and governing ideology. The adherence to ethical values shows his belief in “building the state with political virtue”; the praise of the heroic epic reveals the determination to “protect the state with military force”; the prospect of national poetics presents the vision of “strengthening the state with national culture”. Sidney reinterpreted the function of poetry and the responsibility of poets at the time of national crisis. Discussing politics in the name of poetry, Sidney expressed his efforts to create a political poetics aiming to serve the state, and demonstrated the beautiful political vision of building a “golden world” of heroic, solidary, independent, and united England. Throughout his life, Sidney turned the ideas of statecraft into an act of serving the country. After his early death in battle, he was hailed as the cultural icon and national hero of England.
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Kryzhanovska, O. O. "Artistic works of the literary group „Lanka”-MARS at the reception of the criticism of the Ukrainian diaspora." Bulletin of Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University, no. 3 (341) (2021): 106–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.12958/2227-2844-2021-3(341)-106-113.
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The article notes that critics of the Ukrainian diaspora emphasized the significance of the works of the „Lanka”-MARS authors, considered the main strategies of their work, and determined the connection of the works with the world literary tradition. Lavrinenko's anthology „The Executed Renaissance” allows us to understand the specifics of the history of Ukrainian literature of the 1920s and 1930s. Yu. Lavrinenko represented articles about the works of B. Antonenko-Davydovych, G. Kosynka, T. Osmachka, E. Pluzhnyk, V. Pidmohylny, and D. Falkivsky, which testify to the specifics of Yu. Lavrinenko's reception. The critic called love the main characteristic of T. Osmachka's poems. Yu. Lavrineno emphasized that D. Falkivsky's poetry is characterized by simplicity and naturalness. The article defines that the critic, characterizing the poetic texts of E. Pluzhnyk, emphasizes the principles of his poetics that represent acmeistic traditions. Yu. Lavrinenko focuses on determining the main principles of V. Pidmohylny's works. The article states that Yu. Lavrinenko calls G. Kosynka a talented author of his time, in his skill the writer stands next to M. Khvylov and V. Pidmohylny, his epic works reveal a synthesis of lyricism and brutal metaphor. B. Antonenko-Davidovych's story „Death” is represented by the critic of the Ukrainian diaspora as a confrontation between man, personality and the Communist Party. The article considers the reception of Yu. Sherekh by V. Pidmohylny and T. Osmachka. The critic reveals the deep meaning of V. Pidmohylny's novel „City”, which allows the modern reader to read the work from a different angle, to see new aspects of the artistic world of the text. The article examines the strategies of interpretation of the works of T. Osmachka. Yu. Sherekh called the Ukrainian poet one of the best modern authors, saw his connection with the world tradition, with the works of D. Byron and O. Pushkin.
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van den Berg, Robbert M. "PROCLUS ON HESIOD'S WORKS AND DAYS AND ‘DIDACTIC’ POETRY." Classical Quarterly 64, no. 1 (April 16, 2014): 383–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009838813000773.
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In their introduction to the recent excellent volume Plato & Hesiod, the editors G.R. Boys-Stones and J.H. Haubold observe that when we think about the problematic relationship between Plato and the poets, we tend to narrow this down to that between Plato and Homer. Hesiod is practically ignored. Unjustly so, the editors argue. Hesiod provides a good opportunity to start thinking more broadly about Plato's interaction with poets and poetry, not in the least because the ‘second poet’ of Greece represents a different type of poetry from Homer's heroic epics, that of didactic poetry. What goes for Plato and Hesiod goes for Proclus and Hesiod. Proclus (a.d. 410/12–85), the productive head of the Neoplatonic school in Athens, took a great interest in poetry to which he was far more positively disposed than Plato had ever been. He wrote, for example, two lengthy treatises in reaction to Socrates' devastating criticism of poetry in the Republic as part of his commentary on that work in which he tries to keep the poets within the Platonic pale. This intriguing aspect of Proclus' thought has, as one might expect, not failed to attract scholarly attention. In Proclus' case too, however, discussions tend to concentrate on his attitude towards Homer (one need only think here of Robert Lamberton's stimulating book Homer the Theologian). To some extent this is only to be expected, since much of the discussion in the Commentary on the Republic centres on passages from Homer. Proclus did not, however, disregard Hesiod: we still possess his scholia on the Works and Days, now available in a recent edition by Patrizia Marzillo.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Epic poetry, history and criticism"
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Macleod, Eilidh. "Linguistic evidence for Mycenaean epic." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14497.
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It is now widely acknowledged that the Greek epic tradition, best known from Homer, dates back into the Mycenaean Age, and that certain aspects of epic language point to an origin for this type of verse before the date of the extant Linear B tablets. This thesis argues that not only is this so, but that indeed before the end of the Mycenaean Age epic verse was composed in a distinctive literary language characterized by the presence of alternative forms used for metrical convenience. Such alternatives included dialectal variants and forms which were retained in epic once obsolete in everyday speech. Thus epic language in the 2nd millennium already possessed some of the most distinctive characteristics manifest in its Homeric incarnation, namely the presence of doublets and the retention of archaisms. It is argued here that the most probable source for accretions to epic language was at all times the spoken language familiar to the poets of the tradition. There is reason to believe that certain archaic forms, attested only in epic and its imitators, were obsolete in spoken Greek before 1200 B.C.; by examining formulae containing such forms it is possible to determine the likely subject-matter of 2nd millennium epic. Such a linguistic analysis leads to the conclusion that much of the thematic content of Homeric epic corresponds to that of 2nd millennium epic. Non-Homeric early dactylic verse (e.g. the Hesiodic corpus) provides examples of both non-Homeric dialect forms and of archaisms unknown from Homer. This fact, it is argued, points to the conclusion that the 2nd millennium linguistic heritage of epic is evident also from these poems, and that they are not simply imitations of Homer, but independent representatives of the same poetic tradition whose roots lie in the 2nd millennium epic.
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Kellermann, Alan Michael. "Columbus Day." Thesis, Swansea University, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.678545.
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Mason, Henry Charles. "The Hesiodic Aspis : introduction and commentary on vv. 139-237." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:05a4c022-03d0-4508-800c-9e68e8429999.
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This thesis is concerned with the pseudo-Hesiodic Aspis, also known as the Scutum or Shield of Herakles (Heracles). It is divided into two halves: the Introduction, consisting of four chapters, is followed by detailed line-by-line commentary on a portion of the Greek text. Chapter I surveys the evidence for the poem's origins and dating before moving on to its scholarly reception since Wolf. It then argues that, for a proper understanding of the Aspis, the methodologies of oral poetics must be balanced with an awareness of its responses to fixed texts (in particular the Iliad). Chapter II examines the author as a poet within the oral tradition, focussing on: narrative style and structuring; type-scenes; similes; poetic ethos; the poem's position relative to the Hesiodic corpus; the use of formular language; and the growth of the poem in the author's hands. These problems are most fruitfully approached by taking account of the interplay of tradition on the one hand and of allusion to specific texts on the other. Wider points about the advanced stages of the oral tradition also emerge; in particular, from an analysis of narrative inconsistencies in the Aspis it is suggested that writing played a role in the poem's composition. Chapter III positions the poet within the literary tradition: his interactions with other songs and tales are sometimes sophisticated engagements of a kind more often detected in Hellenistic and Roman poetry. The presentation of the protagonist of the Aspis evinces the poet's skilful handling of myth, here manipulated for political purposes. Chapter III concludes with a survey of the poem's reception in early art and in literature up to Byzantine times. In Chapter IV the central section of the poem, the description of Herakles' shield (vv. 139-320), is examined in detail, both in relation to the Homeric Shield of Achilles and within the context of the Aspis. The second half of the thesis comprises a critical edition of and lemmatic commentary on vv. 139-237.
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Romero, Anaya Jesus. "Individualidad de la "Historia de la nueva Mexico", de Gaspar de Villagra, en el contexto de la epica indiana." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/186119.
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The Historia de la Nueva Mexico, by Gaspar Perez de Villagra, has been one of the less studied epic poems in Hispanic American literary criticism. The purpose of this study is to show the text's literary characteristics and justify its inclusion within the tradition of Ariosto's romanzi, which was earlier followed by La Araucana, paradigm of the epic discourse in Hispanic America. The analysis borrows from a structuralist-narratologic methodology developed in the works of Gerard Genette, Felix Martinez Bonatti, Cedomil Goic and Julia Kristeva. The study begins with the analysis of the different definitions of 'epic genre' from Aristotle and Horatio to the twentieth century and the theories of Genette about architextuality. Once establishing the definitions, the study proceeds to differentiate between the two generic variants: the romance and the epic. The purpose here is to show that the principles of textual disposition applied by epic authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Hispanic America belong to the romance, and this gives the discourse a very distinct structural physiognomy. A comparative analysis of some of the best known epic poems in Hispanic America show their structural singularity, as well as their inclusion within Ariosto's tradition. The texts analyzed are: Arauco domado, Peregrino indiano, Puren indomito, Argentina y Conquista del Rio de la Plata, La Christiada, and Bernardo. In Chapter Four the study centers on the transtextual relationships established between La Araucana and Villagra's poem, which determine the individuality of the Historia de la Nueva Mexico and its inclusion within the Hispanic American literary canon. The poem's uniqueness is based on its peculiar narrative structure, the hypertextual relationship it maintains with the Ercillan paradigm, as well as the juxtaposition of codes that determine an intertextual space. This space is the aesthetic image of ideological tensions in the narrator's perspective. It is the tensions which place both the narrator and the text within the ideological and artistic parameters of the Baroque period.
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Hartley, Vivian Alma. "Ennius and his predessors." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28058.
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The Annales of the Roman poet, Quintus Ennius, was not an isolated example of an historical epic. Other poets before Ennius' time had written epics of various types, and different sorts of poems that dealt with historical
or national material, and some of these influenced Ennius.
This study will consider Ennius' relationship to the Homeric epics, and show how he imitated them in form and style. The writings of other Greek poets who preceded Ennius will be examined to determine whether they might also have influenced the Roman poet. The works of the two Roman poets who wrote before Ennius will be looked at, and some observations made about other historical materials that may have been available for the poet to use in his work. Finally, the place of Quintus Ennius and his Annales in the historiography
of Rome will be discussed.
The Annales seems to have been unique in that it was an epic poem which encompassed the whole history of the Roman people from the earliest times right down to the period in which the poet lived. Other poets before Ennius had dealt with some aspects of their cities' backgrounds, including mythological and legendary material. Ennius was the first to combine ancient legends and more recent history into one coherent epic poem, his Annales.Arts, Faculty of
Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of
Graduate
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Fox, Peta Ann. "Heroes at the gates appeal and value in the Homeric epics from the archaic through the classical period." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002168.
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This thesis raises and explores questions concerning the popularity of the Homeric poems in ancient Greece. It asks why the Iliad and Odyssey held such continuing appeal among the Greeks of the Archaic and Classical age. Cultural products such as poetry cannot be separated from the sociopolitical conditions in which and for which they were originally composed and received. Working on the basis that the extent of Homer’s appeal was inspired and sustained by the peculiar and determining historical circumstances, I set out to explore the relation of the social, political and ethical conditions and values of Archaic and Classical Greece to those portrayed in the Homeric poems. The Greeks, at the time during which Homer was composing his poems, had begun to establish a new form of social organisation: the polis. By examining historical, literary and philosophical texts from the Archaic and Classical age, I explore the manner in which Greek society attempted to reorganise and reconstitute itself in a different way, developing original modes of social and political activity which the new needs and goals of their new social reality demanded. I then turn to examine Homer’s treatment of and response to this social context, and explore the various ways in which Homer was able to reinterpret and reinvent the inherited stories of adventure and warfare in order to compose poetry that not only looks back to the highly centralised and bureaucratic society of the Mycenaean world, but also looks forward, insistently so, to the urban reality of the present. I argue that Homer’s conflation of a remembered mythical age with the contemporary conditions and values of Archaic and Classical Greece aroused in his audiences a new perception and understanding of human existence in the altered sociopolitical conditions of the polis and, in so doing, ultimately contributed to the development of new ideas on the manner in which the Greeks could best live together in their new social world.
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Flint, Angela. "The influence of contemporary events and circumstances on Virgil's characterization of Aeneas." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/1540.
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Brammall, Sheldon. "Translating the Prince of Poets : the politics of the English translations of the Aeneid, 1558-1632." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/283905.
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McIntyre, James Stuart. "Written Into the landscape : Latin epic and the landmarks of literary reception." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/543.
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Landscape in Roman literature is manifest with symbolic potential: in particular, Vergil and Ovid respond to ideologically loaded representations of abundance in nature that signal the dawn of the Augustan golden age. Vergil's Eclogues foreground a locus amoenus landscape which articulates both the hopes of the new age as well as the political upheaval that accompanied the new political regime; Ovid uses the same topography in order to suggest the arbitrary and capricious use of power within a deceptively idyllic landscape. Moreover, for Latin poets, depictions of landscape are themselves sites for poetic reflection as evidenced by the discussion of landscape ecphrases in Horace's Ars Poetica. My thesis focuses upon the depiction and refiguration of the locus amoenus landscape in the post-Augustan epics of the first century AD: Lucan's Bellum Civile, Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Statius' Thebaid and Silius Italicus' Punica. Landscape in these poems retains the moral, political and metapoetic force evident in the Augustan archetypes. However, I suggest that Lucan's Neronian Bellum Civile fundamentally refigures the landscapes of Latin epic poetry, inscribing the locus amoenus with the nefas of civil war in such a manner that it redefines the perception of landscape in the succeeding Flavian poets. Lucan perverts the landscape, making the locus horridus, a landscape of horror, fear and disgust, the predominant landscape of Latin epic; consequently, the poems of Valerius, Statius and Silius engage with Lucan's refiguration of landscape as a means of expressing the horror of civil war. In the first part of my thesis I examine archetypal landscapes, including those of the Augustan poets and Lucan's Bellum Civile. Taking an approach which engages with literary reception theory and the concept of the â horizon of expectationâ as a framework within which literary topographies can be understood as articulating a response to the thematics of civil war, in the second part of my thesis I demonstrate the manner in which landscapes represent a coherent and paradigmatic response to Lucan's imposition of his civil war narrative within the literary landscape of Roman literature.
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Malamis, Daniel Scott Christos. "The justice of Dikê on the forms and significance of dispute settlement by arbitration in the Iliad." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002162.
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This thesis explores the forms and significance of dispute settlement by arbitration, or ‘δίκη’, in the Iliad. I take as my focus the ‘storm simile’ of Iliad XVI: 384-393, which describes Zeus’ theodical reaction to corruption within the δίκη-court, and the ‘shield trial’ of Iliad XVIII: 498-508, which presents a detailed picture of such a court in action, and compare the forms and conception of arbitration that emerge from these two ecphrastic passages with those found in the narrative body of the poem. Analysing the terminology and procedures associated with dispute settlement in the Iliad, I explore the evidence for the development of an ‘ideology of δίκη’, that valorises arbitrated settlement as a solution to conflict, and that identifies δίκη as a procedure and a civic institution with an objective standard of fairness: the foundation of a civic concept of ‘justice’. I argue that this ideology is fully articulated in the storm simile and the shield trial, as well as Hesiod’s Works and Days, but that it is also detectable in the narrative body of the Iliad. I further argue that the poet of the Iliad employs references to this ideology, through the narrative media of speech and ecphrasis, to prompt and direct his audience’s evaluation of the nature and outcome of the poem’s central conflict: the dispute of Achilles and Agamemnon.
Books on the topic "Epic poetry, history and criticism"
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Riach, Alan. Hugh MacDiarmid's epic poetry. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991.
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Bhaṭṭācārya, Tapodhīra. Epic sequence. Delhi, India: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1996.
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Colin, Graham. Ideologies of epic: Nation, empire, and Victorian epic poetry. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1998.
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Keith, Alison. A Latin epic reader: Selections from ten epics. Mundelein, Illinois, USA: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc., 2012.
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Hainsworth, J. B. The idea of epic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
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1928-, Draper Ronald P., ed. The Epic: Developments in criticism : a casebook. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1990.
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Francis, Cairns, Heath Malcolm, and Leeds International Latin Seminar (1987-89), eds. Roman poetry and drama; Greek epic, comedy, rhetoric. Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1990.
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Davies, Malcolm. The Greek epic cycle. 2nd ed. Bristol: Bristol Classical Paperbacks, 2001.
Find full textBook chapters on the topic "Epic poetry, history and criticism"
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Nikolova, Irena. "2.3 The European Romantic Epic and the History of a Genre." In Romantic Poetry, 163–80. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2002. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/chlel.xvii.12nik.
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D’Angelo, Edoardo. "Chapter 16. The Middle East." In Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages, 264–83. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/chlel.xxxiv.16dan.
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Literary Latin production of the Middle East during the Crusader period (eleventh-fifteenth century) is surely not extensive, but it exists and is important. Of course, some literary genres in the “Latin East” survive only in French (epic, legal texts, etc.), but several other genres were composed in Latin, such as historiography, theology, poetry, geography and other ones (scientific translations from oriental languages, etc.).
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Zhao, Yiheng. "Pure Poetry, Impure Criticism, and the Power of Academia: Some Paradoxes Concerning the History of New-Wave Poetry." In The River Fans Out, 191–200. Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7724-6_12.
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Bumke, Joachim. "The Fluid Text: Observations on the History of Transmission and Textual Criticism of the Thirteenth-Century Courtly Epic." In Visual Culture and the German Middle Ages, 99–113. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2005. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05655-9_6.
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Sinichkina, Daria. "Entre mythe et histoire, syncrétisme et fracture, universalité et russité: le recueil Mednyj Kit (Baleine de bronze) au coeur de l’esthétique révolutionnaire de Nikolaj Kljuev." In Biblioteca di Studi Slavistici, 235–57. Florence: Firenze University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.36253/978-88-6453-507-4.18.
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Soon after greeting the February revolution, Klyuev turns to an aesthetic of violence and disruption. In the poetic cycle Medny Kit (1918), the utopia of “peasant paradise” stems from the apocalyptic destruction of old Russia. While the poet contemplates the cyclicity of Russian history, the lyrical subject comes transfigured out of the “red” baptism, identifying himself simultaneously to Rasputin and Avvakum. As the cycle captures the brutal melody of the times, the lyric genre is pushed to its limit – polyphony, which announces the transition to narrative and epic poetry.
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Hutchinson, G. O. "Conceptions Of Genre: Criticism in Prose Poetry." In Latin Literature from Seneca to Juvenal, 4–39. Oxford University PressOxford, 1993. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198146902.003.0002.
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Abstract Genre is an evident fact of this literature. If we contemplate the literature as from the air, we must immediately be struck by stark and primary divisions and chasms, between poetry and prose, philosophy and history, epic and epigram. What these divisions of genre entail is a more complicated question; the book as a whole will only try to illuminate some of the differences and likenesses between some of the genres. In the first two chapters we will seek some preliminary orientation in this landscape, and in doing so will introduce the book’s principal themes of greatness (sublimity, grandeur) and reality (truth). (Cf. pp. r f) Our attention will be devoted almost exclusively to the Latin literature of this period, in the generic scene that it displays and in the comments on genre that it offers. This path has been chosen as one of special and immediate interest for this book, not as the only valid route. It will not be possible to consider either ancient literary criticism in general or the history of the individual genres; these topics, fundamental but enormous, would not lead us to very different conclusions.
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Fuller, David. "William Empson: from verbal analysis to cultural criticism." In Literary Theory and Criticism, 152–65. Oxford University PressOxford, 2006. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199291335.003.0012.
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Abstract William Empson was a theoretical anarchist. He regarded verbal analysis as primary, but he was otherwise led by the needs of the particular case, and might be led almost anywhere—to popular culture or heterodox learning; textual variants or an author’s life, conscious and unconscious; the first audience or the history of a work’s meanings; science or religions, Western and Eastern; the relationship of a writer or work to his own personal experience, or his rationalist ethical views. He wrote about poetry, plays, and novels, and considered work from The Epic of Gilgamesh to contemporaries. His written style—by turns comic or combative, passionate or ironic—is notably idiosyncratic.
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Kennedy-Epstein, Rowena. "Mother of Exiles." In Unfinished Spirit, 66–88. Cornell University Press, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501762321.003.0004.
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This chapter emphasizes that Savage Coast serves as an ur-text for Muriel Rukeyser's writing over the following five decades. The chapter follows its afterlives, traceable in poems, reportage, memoir, and essays—and more often in experimental forms that combined these genres—circumventing the aesthetic and political criticism originally leveled against the text. By continuing to draw from her experience of the Spanish Civil War to write about war and crisis throughout her life, the chapter reveals how Rukeyser created a fragmented epic endeavor for those who fought and died in the first major battle against fascism. The chapter discusses Rukeyser's recurrent use of Spain to the development of her larger literary project, one that subverts the perceived separation between political and aesthetic poetry so inculcated in mid-twentieth-century literary culture. It then maps her own moment of political and sexual awakening inside the larger public history of war, revolution, and social change.
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Peña, Margarita. "Epic poetry." In The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature, 231–59. Cambridge University Press, 1996. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/chol9780521340694.009.
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Venturo, David. "Epic and Mock Epic." In The Oxford History of Poetry in English, 305–18. Oxford University PressOxford, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/9780198930259.003.0027.
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Abstract This chapter examines how John Milton redefined epic, and then how John Dryden reshaped aspects of heroism and employed mock epic, before he returned, after losing his public posts, to translate the great Virgilian epic, The Aeneid. Over the course of the seventeenth century, epic evolved in the crucible of Mikhail Bakhtin’s ‘zone of . . . contact’ of civil war, regicide, the republic, and the Restoration from an idealised genre into a vehicle for confronting the reality of martial violence and political subterfuge. Despite Milton’s scorn for Augustan theories of language, he, along with the Augustans, including Dryden and Samuel Butler, transformed epic from a genre celebrating war and martial heroism into something that looks more forthrightly at such violence and its causes.
Conference papers on the topic "Epic poetry, history and criticism"
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Liu, Chongxi. "“POETRY CARVED IN STONE”: DOCUMENTARY, LITERARY AND CULTURAL CONNOTATION IN BAI JUYI’S POETRY INSCRIPTION." In 10th International Conference "Issues of Far Eastern Literatures (IFEL 2022)". St. Petersburg State University, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.21638/11701/9785288063770.04.
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The poetry inscription, with Bai Juyi in the Middle Tang Era as its representative, began to express purely personal emotions in terms of content, which reflects the poet’s creative individuality. Bai takes stone as his friend, loves it, chants it, and inscribes poems on it, endowing it natural and personal qualities. Bai was the first poet to consciously combine “poetry” and “stone” with nearly 20 kinds of poetry inscriptions. Compared with book documents, Bai’s poetry inscriptions not only have the philological value of text criticism, but also have multiple functions, i. e., reproducing the historical context of poetry creation and transmitting as a “linguistic landscape”. Such humanistic connotation determines the significance of Bai’s poetry inscription in the history of Chinese literature and culture.
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Mechidova, Shehla. "SABA (MORNİNGWIND), THE MESSENGER OF LOVE İN BABUR’S POETRY." In The Impact of Zahir Ad-Din Muhammad Bobur’s Literary Legacy on the Advancement of Eastern Statehood and Culture. Alisher Navoi' Tashkent state university of Uzbek language and literature, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.52773/bobur.conf.2023.25.09/tffz3934.
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The epic and lyrical works of Babur, who wrote and created excellent works in Cigatai after Alishir Navai,, have reached our time. Although Babur is more famous in the history of literature for his work "Baburnama", his lyrics have always been in the center of attention with their artistic features. Babur proved that he was not only a powerful ruler, but also a poet with delicate feelings and fragile feelings, by depicting human feelings and thoughts more powerfully and beautifully than they were, adding thousands of colors to them with the magic of words and creating beautiful works from each other. The innate talent of the poet plays an important role in the expression of this beauty andelegance, because at this time human feelings and experiences are compared with inanimate natural objects and abstract concepts. In these comparisons, the innate talent of the writer to express any idea in a figurative way is clearly evident. These works,which are expressions of the poetic power of the word and the mysterious world of colors, attract more attention due to the artistic expression style, have stood and are still standing above time.