Roger Rees - Böcker

This collection of sixteen articles, written by leading specialists in Classical and English literature, is an important contribution to the critical assessment of Ted Hughes, one of the most popular and controversial English poets of the late 20th century. The chapters are arranged broadly chronologically according to Hughes's publications, and deal with different aspects of his engagement with the culture and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, including translations, original works, classical thought, and ideologies in his drama and verse. Hughes is revealed as a leading figure in literary reception of the Classics in 20th century poetry, a sharply intelligent and sensitive reader of some of the world's foundational texts.

This is the first monograph in English on the Panegyrici Latini, and the first in any language dedicated to the five speeches of praise from 289 - 307. The study considers the relationship between the fulsome oratory of the speeches and the social, literary, and political context of the time. These decades witnessed great constitutional and administrative change, from Dyarchy to Tetrarchy, then from Tetrarchy to a flawed imperial college, which spelled the end of the Diocletianic experiment. By situating the surviving speeches in their context in Northern Gaul, the author demonstrates how contemporary provincial orators justified, accommodated, and projected these changes.Discussion of the potential and tension inherent in the culture of imperial praesentia introduces the study's main approach. In each of five substantial chapters, the date, place, and circumstance of delivery are considered to identify the challenges facing the orator. Close analysis of style and content reveals how diplomatic combinations of established and original literary tropes, treatise recommendations, figured expressions of imperial relationships, and adaptations of contemporary numismatic and artistic iconography articulate very specific ambitions and agenda. The orators are shown to be sophisticated, informed, and confident: their speeches are encoded expressions of local preoccupations.What emerges is the realization that panegyric was a genre capable of great agility, and that through its exaggerated and artificial discourse, skilful orators could find meaningful expression for their particular concerns.

What was Roman political praise for and what could it achieve? Could it have literary merit? What do the surviving examples of Roman political praise-giving reveal about the circumstances and milieu in which they originated? Latin Panegyric brings together sixteen essays focussing on praise in the Roman Empire and, in particular, on praise of the emperor. Spanning a century of scholarship, and constituting landmark studies on different aspects of the largest collection of classical Latin oratory to survive after Cicero - the Panegyrici Latini - this collection includes speeches addressed to the emperors Trajan, Maximian, Constantine, Julian, and Theodosius, and traces three centuries of oratorical praise-giving in the Roman world. These influential readings consider textual, rhetorical, literary, political, and religious matters, and together represent the evolving landscape of academic attitudes towards praise discourse, with its strengths and problems, and towards some of the best-known Roman emperors. With a full introduction by the editor, and with four essays translated into English for the first time, this valuable volume plots the narratives of Roman praise and gives students of classical literature, history, and rhetoric direct access to key scholarship.

What was Roman political praise for and what could it achieve? Could it have literary merit? What do the surviving examples of Roman political praise-giving reveal about the circumstances and milieu in which they originated? Latin Panegyric brings together sixteen essays focussing on praise in the Roman Empire and, in particular, on praise of the emperor. Spanning a century of scholarship, and constituting landmark studies on different aspects of the largest collection of classical Latin oratory to survive after Cicero - the Panegyrici Latini - this collection includes speeches addressed to the emperors Trajan, Maximian, Constantine, Julian, and Theodosius, and traces three centuries of oratorical praise-giving in the Roman world. These influential readings consider textual, rhetorical, literary, political, and religious matters, and together represent the evolving landscape of academic attitudes towards praise discourse, with its strengths and problems, and towards some of the best-known Roman emperors. With a full introduction by the editor, and with four essays translated into English for the first time, this valuable volume plots the narratives of Roman praise and gives students of classical literature, history, and rhetoric direct access to key scholarship.

This new collection of essays, commissioned from a range of scholars across the world, takes as its theme the reception of Rome's greatest poet in a time of profound cultural change. Amid the rise of Christianity, the changing status of the city of Rome, and the emergence of new governing classes, Vergil remained a bedrock of Roman education and identity. This volume considers the different ways in which Vergil was read, understood and appropriated; by poets, commentators, Church fathers, orators and historians. The introduction outlines the cultural and historical contexts. Twelve chapters dedicated to individual writers or genres, and the contributors make use of a wide range of approaches from contemporary reception theory. An epilogue concludes the volume. "Romane Memento" will be of interest to literary critics and cultural historians of Late Antiquity, but also to Vergilianists unfamiliar with the literature of the fourth century.

This book aims to make accessible the sources and controversies concerning a key period in the history of the Roman Empire – the reign of Diocletian and its immediate aftermath. Diocletian was an emperor of unusual ambition, and his reign saw considerable military success, an experiment in collegiate government, a move towards provincial capitals away from Rome, a reorganisation of the administrative machinery of empire and its finances, and a committed project to persecute the Christians. In Part I, an introduction to Diocletian and the world of the late third century is followed by six thematic chapters covering a range of aspects of government and society under this emperor, including military, economic, religious and administrative affairs. These chapters discuss the original sources, highlight their strengths and weaknesses, and consider the main scholarly approaches to them. Throughout Part I there are regular cross references to the source material which is presented in Part II – this includes literary, archaeological, artistic, legal, and documentary evidence, as well as coins and inscriptions. All texts are in English, and there is a guide to further reading, a full bibliography, some questions for consideration, a glossary of technical terms, and a brief list of relevant online resources.

This book aims to make accessible the sources and controversies concerning a key period in the history of the Roman Empire – the reign of Diocletian and its immediate aftermath. Diocletian was an emperor of unusual ambition, and his reign saw considerable military success, an experiment in collegiate government, a move towards provincial capitals away from Rome, a reorganisation of the administrative machinery of empire and its finances, and a committed project to persecute the Christians. In Part I, an introduction to Diocletian and the world of the late third century is followed by six thematic chapters covering a range of aspects of government and society under this emperor, including military, economic, religious and administrative affairs. These chapters discuss the original sources, highlight their strengths and weaknesses, and consider the main scholarly approaches to them. Throughout Part I there are regular cross references to the source material which is presented in Part II – this includes literary, archaeological, artistic, legal, and documentary evidence, as well as coins and inscriptions. All texts are in English, and there is a guide to further reading, a full bibliography, some questions for consideration, a glossary of technical terms, and a brief list of relevant online resources.

The renowned Gallic poet Pacatus Drepanius journeyed to Rome in the summer of AD 389 to deliver a speech to the Emperor Theodosius; both men stood for the first time before the Roman Senators. It was a moment of high political charge. The Latin speech survives and is here presented both in the original and with facing English translation; the introduction and commentary capture the groundbreaking character of the work and set it in its historical, rhetorical and literary contexts.