Description - After Virgil by Robert Cowan
What is epic? Is it all kings and battles with no women? Is it about glorifying and validating the victors? These are the questions that Virgil's successors self-consciously explored through poetry in the 120 years after the Aeneid achieved instant classic status and set the standard for Roman epic. Through their work they engaged in a dynamic process of imitating, interpreting, reacting against, and even perverting that standard. With subject matter drawn from myth and history - from Hannibal to Caesar, Oedipus to Medea - these poems explore issues of gender, the relationship between gods and mortals, tyranny, civil war, and, above all, what it meant to be Roman under the Emperors. After a survey of the epic tradition before Virgil and on through Ovid, each chapter explores a theme or issue, with illustrations and case-studies from all of the post-Virgilian epics. Themes covered include intertextuality, politics, cities, gender, the supernatural, and narrative. A final chapter will examine the reception and afterlife of post-Virgilian epic.
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