Claudian and the Roman Epic Tradition
2013; Classical Association of Canada; Volume: 67; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/phx.2013.0045
ISSN1929-4883
Autores Tópico(s)Classical Antiquity Studies
Resumo410 PHOENIX This well-organized collection is both intellectually rigorous and user-friendly. All quotations are translated, each chapter contains guidance for further reading, and while each contribution has a distinctive style and outlook, all are engaging and lively. By turning away from the ways that Lucilius and Horace had framed their satires, Persius and Juvenal each found new strategies to formulate their critiques of Roman society. In our changing world, careful attention to these strategies is well repaid. University of Washington Catherine M. Connors Claudian and the Roman Epic Tradition. By Catherine Ware. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 2012. Pp. x, 266. Claudian has long attracted the attention of historians because of his reputation as a panegyrist at the court of Honorius at the end of the fourth century c.e. into the early years of the fifth.1 He and his poetry, however, have received much less sustained discussion among literary critics.2 Yet J. B. Hall’s 1969 publication of the text of the De Raptu Proserpina, subsequently followed by his 1985 Teubner edition of Claudian’s entire oeuvre, opened the floodgates to a steady stream of commentaries on individual poems by Claudian,3 and these in turn have generated a rich crop of specialized studies in articles and monographs.4 The time seems ripe, therefore, for a reassessment of his 1 A. Cameron, Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius (Oxford 1970), heralded by articles in Historia 14 (1965) and CQ n.s. 18 (1968). See also J. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court A.D. 364–425 (Oxford 1975); S. Döpp, Zeitgeschichte in Dichtungen Claudians (Wiesbaden 1980); W. W. Ehlers, F. Felgentreu, and S. Wheeler (eds.), Aetas Claudianea (Munich and Leipzig 2004). 2 For literary scholarship on Claudian before Cameron (above, n. 1), on the one hand, and the turn to allusion in Latin literary criticism, on the other, see M. Platnauer, Claudian (Cambridge, MA 1922); P. Fargues, Claudien: Étudies sur sa poésie et son temps (Paris 1933); A. H. Eaton, The Influence of Ovid on Claudian (Washington, DC 1943); I. Gualandri, Aspetti della technica compositiva in Claudiano (Milan and Varese 1968); P. G. Christiansen, The Use of Images by Claudius Claudianus (The Hague 1969); O. A. W. Dilke, Claudian: Poet of Declining Empire and Morals (Leeds 1969); U. Keudel, Poetische Vorläufer und Vorbilder in Claudians de consulatu Stilichonis (Göttingen 1970); S. Werner, Claudiani Panegyricus de Consolatu Manlii Theodori (Berlin 1975); P. L. Schmidt, Politik und Dichtung in der Panegyrik Claudians (Constance 1976). 3 Texts: J. B. Hall (ed.), Claudian: De Raptu Proserpina (Cambridge 1969); id. (ed.), Claudii Claudiani Carmina (Leipzig 1985); J. L. Charlet (ed.), Claudien, poèmes politiques (Paris 2000). Commentaries: H. L. Levy, Claudian’s In Rufinum: An Exegetical Commentary (Princeton 1971); E. M. Olechowska, Claudii Claudiani De bello Gildonico (Leiden 1978); W. Barr, Claudian’s PanegyricontheFourth Consulateof Honorius (Liverpool 1981); H. Schweckendiek, Claudians Invektive gegen Eutrop (In Eutropium) (Hildesheim 1992); C. Gruzelier (ed.), De raptu Proserpinae (Oxford 1993); M. Dewar (ed.), Panegyricus de Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti (Oxford 1996). 4 Other recent contributions to this study include Ehlers, Felgentreu and Wheeler (above, n. 2); F. Felgentreu, Claudians Praefationes: Bedingungen, Beschreibungen und Wirkungen einer poetischen Kleinform (Stuttgart and Leipzig 1999); F. Garambois-Vasquez, Les invectives de Claudien: Une poétique de la violence (Brussels 2007); J. Long, Claudian’s In Eutropium: Or How, When and Why to Slander a Eunuch (Chapel Hill, NC 1996); R. Perrelli, I Proemi Claudianei. Tra Epica ed Epidittica (Catania 1992); C. Schindler, Per carmina laudes: Untersuchungen zur spätantiken Verspanegyrik von Claudian bis Coripp (Berlin and New York 2009). BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 411 specifically epic achievements, since, as Catherine Ware points out in the Introduction (1–17) of her stimulating new study of Claudian as an epic poet, the honorary inscription accompanying the statue of Claudian erected in the Forum of Trajan by the emperors Honorius and Arcadius at the request of the Senate identifies him as a poet of epic in the tradition of Homer and Vergil. Accordingly, in this study Ware treats all of Claudian’s hexameter poems together, as specimens of epic poetry, including the panegyrics (on...
Referência(s)