Epic Lessons
An Introduction to Ancient Didactic Poetry
1st Edition
Published on 15. April 2013
288 pages
978-1-135-03534-1 (ISBN)
Description
Didactic Epic was enormously popular in the ancient world. It was used to teach Greeks and Romans technical and scientific subjects, but in verse. Epic Lessons shows how this scientific poetry was intended not just to instruct but also to entertain.
Praise for its predecessor, Reading Epic
'Toohey's erudition makes the complexities and the strangeness of these ancient poems appear as clear as daylight and his enthusiasm renders them as attractive as the latest blockbuster.' - JACT Review
Praise for its predecessor, Reading Epic
'Toohey's erudition makes the complexities and the strangeness of these ancient poems appear as clear as daylight and his enthusiasm renders them as attractive as the latest blockbuster.' - JACT Review
Reviews / Votes
'This book offers a comprehensive survey of the major surviving examples of Greek and Roman didactic poetry ... I also enjoyed the opportunity to delve into Nicander and other less frequently read writers and found that they provided an illuminating context for more familiar works.' I Hilary Walters, Loughborough Grammar SchoolMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
File size
11,49 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-135-03534-1 (9781135035341)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
09/2013
1st Edition
Routledge
€79.30
Shipment within 15-20 days
Book
11/1996
1st Edition
Routledge
€206.60
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Peter Toohey is Associate Professor in Classics and Ancient History at the University of New England, New South Wales. He is the author of Reading Epic: An Introduction to the Ancient Narratives (1992), and has edited, with Mark Golden Reconstructing the Past: Historicism, Periodisation and the Ancient World (1996).
Content
Introduction. 1. Who Reads Didactic Epic? 2. Word of Mouth. Orality and Didactic Poetry from Hesiod to Empedocles 3. The Universe as a Book. Alexandrian Literacy and the Poems of Aratus and Nicander 4. Roman Renewal. Cicero and Lucretius 5. Politics, Power and Play. Polyphony in Virgil's Georgics and Ovid's Fasti 6. Amusements for a Smoky December. Horace on Poetry and Ovid on Eros 7. Humans, Nature and God. Epic Lessons in the First Century 8. Resisting Instinct. Hunting, Fishing, Science, and God 9. Didactic Dinners. Instruction in Narrative Epic and in the Novel 10. A Literary History of Leisure? The Didactic Epic. Bibliography.
