Lucan

A selection of essential essays, by leading scholars, on Lucan's civil war epic, De Bello Civili. Five essays appear in English for the first time, and quotations from Latin and Greek have been translated. A specially written Introduction, by Susanna Braund, provides an up-to-date guide to scholarship and reception.

This book makes available in convenient form a selection of seminal articles on the Roman poet Lucan's grim epic, written in the time of Nero, on the world-changing civil war between Caesar and Pompey in the mid first century BC. The selection enables the reader of Lucan's work to trace the emergence of vital critical perspectives and controversies and the diverse approaches that have been applied to them. Five essays appear in English for the first time, and quotations from Latin and Greek have been translated. A specially written Introduction, by Susanna Braund, provides an up-to-date guide to scholarship on Lucan and to the history of the reception of the poem.

1 - Lucan as the Transmitter of Ancient Pathos
2 - The Proem of the Pharsalia
3 - Is the Eulogy of Nero at the Beginning of the Pharsalia Ironic?
4 - Lucan and the Declamation Schools
5 - Lucan's Use of Virgilian Reminiscence
6 - Stimulos Dedit Aemula Virtus: Lucan and Homer Reconsidered
7 - The Oak and the Lightning: Lucan, Bellum Civile 1.135-157
8 - Lucan's Caesar and the Sacred Grove: Deforestation and Enlightenment in Antiquity
9 - Lucan and the History of the Civil War
10 - The Politician Lucan
11 - Lucan's Imagery of Cosmic Dissolution
12 - Lucan's Auctor Vix Fidelis
13 - Stat Magni Nominis Umbra: Lucan on the Greatness of Pompeius Magnus
14 - Indocilis Privata Loqui: The Characterization of Lucan's Caesar
15 - Cato, Caesar, and Fortune in Lucan
16 - Lucan's Caesar at Troy
17 - Lucan/The Word at War

The late Charles Tesoriero was Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of New England, Australia. Frances Muecke is Senior Lecturer in Latin at the University of Sydney. Tamara Neal has taught Classics at the Universities of Sydney and New England, Australia.