Ideology in cold blood : a reading of Lucan's Civil war / Shadi Bartsch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bartsch, Shadi, 1966-

Series:

Revealing antiquity ; 6.

[Revealing antiquity ; 6]

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Epic poetry, Latin--History and criticism.

Epic poetry, Latin.

Rome--History--Civil War, 49-45 B.C.

Rome.

Lucan, 39-65. Pharsalia.

Lucan.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x,224p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA ; London : Harvard University Press, 1997.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Is Lucan's epic Civil War an example of ideological poetry, or does it proclaim the meaninglessness of ideology? The author finds in the paradoxes of Lucan's poetry both a political irony that responds to the need for, yet suspicion of, ideology.

Is Lucan's epic "Civil War" an example of ideological poetry at its most flagrant, or is it a work that desparingly proclaims the meaninglessness of ideology? Shadi Bartsch offers an answer to this split debate on the Roman poet's magnum opus.;Reflecting on the disintegration of the Roman Republic in the wake of the civil war that began in 49BC, Lucan (writing during the reign of Nero) recounts that fateful conflict with a strangely ambiguous portrayal of his republican hero, Pompey. Although the story is one of tragic defeat, the language of his epic is more often violent and nihilistic than heroic and tragic. Lucan is oddly fascinated by the graphic destruction of lives, the violation of human bodies - an interest paralleled in his deviant syntax and fragmented poetry.;In an analysis that draws on contemporary political thought ranging from Hannah Arendt and Richard Rorty to the poetry of Vietnam veternas, as well as on literary theory and ancient sources, Bartsch finds in the paradoxes of Lucan's poetry both a political irony that responds to the universally perceived need for, yet suspicion of, ideology, and a recourse to the redemptive power of storytelling.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Introduction

ONE The Subject under Siege

TWO Paradox, Doubling, and Despair

THREE Pompey as Pivot

FOUR The Will to Believe

FIVE History without Banisters

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

ISBN:

9780674020559

0674020553

OCLC:

923117029