Description
Book SynopsisCompelled by Nero to commit suicide at age 25 after writing uncomplimentary poems, Latin poet Lucan nevertheless left behind a significant body of work, including the
Bellum Civile. Giulio Celotto provides an interpretation of this civil war based on the examination of Lucan's literary adaptation of the cosmological dialectic of Love and Strife.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Love and Strife in Greek and Roman Literature
- 1.1 Philosophical Background: Love and Strife in Didactic Poetry
- 1.2 Literary Background: Love and Strife in Epic Poetry
- 1.3 Love and Strife in Vergil
- 2. The Dialectic of Love and Strife in Lucan
- 2.1 The Proem
- 2.2 Venus and Mars
- 2.3 Ilerda
- 2.4 Erictho
- 3. Love in Lucan
- 3.1 Pompey, Julia, and Cornelia
- 3.2 Caesar and Cleopatra
- 3.3 Cato and Marcia
- 3.4 Alexander the Great
- 4. Strife in Lucan
- 4.1 Cosmos and Chaos
- 4.2 Virtus and Aristeiai
- 4.3 Games
- 4.4 Clemency
- 5. The Interaction of Love and Strife in Lucan
- 5.1 Love for Strife
- 5.2 Strife as Love Rivalry
- 5.3 Strife as Love Suicide
- 5.4 Strife as Rape
- Afterword
- Bibliography
