Prudentius and the landscapes of late antiquity / Cillian O'Hogan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

O'Hogan, Cillian, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prudentius, 348-.

Prudentius.

Landscapes--Rome.

Landscapes.

Christian poetry, Latin.

Rome (Empire).

Physical Description:

viii, 197 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Summary:

Prudentius and the Landscapes of Late Antiquity offers a thematic analysis of the poetry of the late Latin poet Prudentius, focusing in particular on his descriptions of the geographical and cultural landscapes of late antiquity. Cillian O'Hogan sets Prudentius in the context of other late antique authors, including Lactantius, Jerome, Augustine, and Endelechius, and argues that the poet makes use of allusion to Augustan and early imperial Latin authors to present the late Roman landscape as one markedly altered by the arrival of Christianity, though retaining the grandeur of the pagan past. This volume examines his conception of the world as a text, his use of intertextuality to describe literary journeys, his view of the civic function of Christian martyrdom, his conception of heaven, and his attitude towards art and architecture, combining philological and intertextual criticism with approaches drawn from the fields of book history, cultural geography, and theology to paint a fuller and richer picture of the greatest of the Christian Latin poets. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Reading as a Journey 9

1.1 Transmission of the Peristephanon: A Brief Survey 10

1.2 Technical Handbooks, Armchair Pilgrims, and Ethnography 15

1.3 The Book of Nature and the World as Text 23

1.4 The Travelling Reader 30

2 Intertextual Journeys 35

2.1 Travel and Experience 35

2.2 Eulalia 41

2.3 Hippolytus 48

2.4 Cassian 51

3 Urban Space and Roman History 71

3.1 Early Christian Ideas about the City 71

3.2 The Martyr as Saviour of the City 77

3.3 The Community and the Martyr: Procession and Celebration 84

3.4 Effacing the City: The Landscape of the Psychomachia 94

4 Pastoral and Rural Spaces 99

4.1 Endeiecbius and Christian Pastoral 99

4.2 Farming and Faith in tire Contra Orationem Symmachi 109

4.3 Visions of Heaven 115

4.4 The Temple of the Soul 127

5 Describing Art 133

5.1 Art and Idolatry 135

5.2 The Problem of Interpreting Christian Art 145

5.3 Ambiguous Architecture 154.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-190) and indexes.

ISBN:

0198749228

9780198749226

OCLC:

938360516