Poetics of the First Punic War / Thomas Biggs.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Biggs, Thomas (Classicist), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Latin literature--History and criticism.

Latin literature.

Latin poetry--History and criticism.

Latin poetry.

Punic War, 1st, 264-241 B.C.

War in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 238 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, [2020]

Summary:

Poetics of the First Punic War investigates the literary afterlives of Rome's first conflict with Carthage. From its original role in the Middle Republic as the narrative proving ground for epic's development out of verse historiography, to its striking cultural reuse during the Augustan and Flavian periods, the First Punic War (264-241 BCE) holds an underappreciated place in the history of Latin literature. Because of the serendipitous meeting of historical content and poetic form in the third century BCE, a textualized First Punic War went on to shape the Latin language and its literary genres, the practices and politics of remembering war, popular visions of Rome as a cultural capital, and numerous influential conceptions of Punic North Africa. Poetics of the First Punic War combines innovative theoretical approaches with advances in the philological analysis of Latin literature to reassess the various "texts" of the First Punic War, including those composed by Vergil, Propertius, Horace, and Silius Italicus. This book also contains sustained treatment of Naevius' fragmentary Bellum Punicum (Punic War) and Livius Andronicus' Odusia (Odyssey), some of the earliest works of Latin poetry. As the tradition's primary Roman topic, the First Punic War is forever bound to these poems, which played a decisive role in transmitting an epic view of history.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: One. Rome, the Sea, and the "Roman Odyssey'

Rome and the Sea I

The Aristonothos Krater

Rome and the Sea II

The First Punic War

Livius Andronicus and the Odusia

Two. Naevius' First Punic War

"Biographical" Contexts

Fragments of Carthage and the Carthaginians

Fragments of Rome

Historical Time

Prehistorical Time

Cultural Capital: Rome as "Literary" City

Three. Mediated Memories

Four. An Augustan First Punic War

Urban Monuments

Horace's First Punic War

Propertian Intersections

Vergil's Aeneid

Five. The First Punic War in Silius Italicus' Punka

The Flavian Context

The Aegates Islands

Hannibal's Hatred and Memories of Defeat

The Rhetorical Aegates

Ekphrastic Islands

Regulus Redux

Marcia

Satricus and Son(s)

Hannibal's Shield

The Nekyia

A Final Image: Sea Storm

Epilogue. An American First Punic War: The Naval Monument and the First Barbary War.

Notes:

Description based on information from the publisher.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-238) and index.

ISBN:

0-472-12713-6