Search results for ""Author Niall Rudd""

This edition of Johnson's Latin Poems contains a Preface and Introduction followed by text, translation (prose), and brief notes on the poems. Several corrections have been made to the standard text. The notes deal with the obscurities and provide comment on style and treatment. It is often interesting to see how Johnson uses his Latin sources, especially Horace, to add a dimension to his meaning. There are numerous links with familiar episodes in Johnson's life, e.g., his trip to the Hebrides, the revision of his dictionary, his recovery from illness; and there are instances (notable in the anguished appeals for mercy in his prayers), where the more distant Latin form enables Johnson to say things about himself that he would never have expressed in English. The reader will find new details added to the well-loved portrait.

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The Satires of Horace (65-8 BC), written in the troubled decade ending with the establishment of Augustus' regime, provide an amusing treatment of men's perennial enslavement to money, power, glory and sex. Epistles I, addressed to the poet's friends, deals with the problem of achieving contentment amid the complexities of urban life, while Epistles II and the Ars Poetica discuss Latin poetry - its history and social functions, and the craft required for its success. Both works have had a powerful influence on later Western literature, inspiring poets from Ben Jonson and Alexander Pope to W. H. Auden and Robert Frost. The Satires of Persius (AD 34-62) are highly idiosyncratic, containing a courageous attack on the poetry and morals of his wealthy contemporaries - even the ruling emperor, Nero.

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`However one defines Man, the same definition applies to us all. This is sufficient proof that there is no essential difference within mankind.' (Laws l.29-30) Cicero's The Republic is an impassioned plea for responsible governement written just before the civil war that ended the Roman Republic in a dialogue following Plato. Drawing on Greek political theory, the work embodies the mature reflections of a Roman ex-consul on the nature of political organization, on justice in society, and on the qualities needed in a statesman. Its sequel, The Laws, expounds the influential doctrine of Natural Law, which applies to all mankind, and sets out an ideal code for a reformed Roman Republic, already half in the realm of utopia. This is the first complete English translation of both works for over sixty years and features a lucid Introduction, a Table of Dates, notes on the Roman constitution, and an Index of Names. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Juvenal, writing between AD 110 and 130, was one of the greatest satirists of Imperial Rome. His powerful and witty attacks on the vices, abuses, and follies of the big city have been admired and used by many English writers, including Ben Jonson, Dryden, and most notably, Dr Johnson, who described his writing as `a mixture of gaiety and statelines, of pointed sentences and declamatory grandeur'. Juvenal has been seen as a stern moralist and, more recently, as an extravagant wit, and is acclaimed for his vivid description of the scenes which aroused his anger. He coined the famous phrase designating people `eager and anxious for two things; bread and races' (panem et circenses'). Niall Rudd's translation reproduces the original style and metrical effect of Juvenal's hexameters. William Barr's Introduction and Notes provide literary and historical background to the sixteen satires. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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This book presents fifty illustrations of Landor's exceptional dexterity in Latin verse, showing his hostile treatment of political figures (including royalty), his relations with friends, his pleasures and sufferings as a lover, and his delight in the changing phases of nature. The long closing piece treats, within a mythological framework, the great forces that govern the world and its inhabitants. Landor offers an interesting contrast with Dr Johnson, who died in 1784 when Landor was nine and who is sometimes wrongly described as the last important writer with an inner command of Latin. First, though Landor was careless about money, and at times in serious trouble with debt, he had an inheritance which put him in a different position from Johnson's. Again, while some of Johnson's Latin poems show a deeply felt belief in religion, Landor's deities are those of classical paganism. Other points emerge from a consideration of what they owe to their Latin predecessors. Both draw on Vergil—especially on the pastorals (Eclogues). And both are indebted to Horace for the metrical forms which he took over from the Greeks and for his genial good sense. But Horace also wrote some abusive epodes on women (nos. 8 and 12) that, though shunned by the fastidious doctor, foreshadow Landor's attacks on Princess Caroline of Brunswick.

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