Lucan and Flavian Epic (Brill Research Perspectives in Humanities and Social Sciences / Brill Research Perspectives in Classical Poetry)

Roman imperial epic is enjoying a moment in the sun in the twenty-first century, as Lucan, Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus have all been the subject of a remarkable increase in scholarly attention and appreciation. Lucan and Flavian epic characterizes and historicizes that moment, showing how the qualities of the poems and the histories of their receptions have brought about the kind of analysis and attention they are now receiving. Serving both experienced scholars of the poems and students interested in them for the first time, this book offers a new perspective on current and future directions in scholarship. Contents Acknowledgements Abstract Keywords 1 Introduction 2 Lucan 2.1 Lucan’s Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern Receptions 2.2 Lucan in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 2.3 Lucan’s Intertextuality 2.4 The Completeness of the Poem 3 Valerius Flaccus 3.1 The Text: Manuscript, Date, and Completion 3.2 Intertextuality and Belatedness 3.3 Intertextual Models: Virgil, Apollonius, and Others 3.4 Mythological Characterization 3.5 Current Trends and Future Directions 4 Statius 4.1 The Thebaid: the Statian Renaissance 4.1.1 The Politics of the Thebaid: Optimists and Pessimists 4.1.2 The Thebaid in the Ancient Canon 4.2 The Thebaid: the Statian nouvelle vague 4.2.1 Sociocultural and Intertextual Readings 4.2.2 Reevaluating the Text and Transmission 4.3 The Thebaid: Current Trends and Future Directions 4.3.1 Commentaries 4.3.2 Poetics and Politics 4.3.3 Sociocultural Approaches 4.3.4 Intertextuality 4.3.5 Reception 4.4 The Achilleid 4.4.1 The Text of the Achilleid 4.4.2 Gender and Genre in the Achilleid 4.4.3 Future Directions 5 Silius Italicus 5.1 Exemplarity in the Punica 5.2 Civil War in the Punica 5.3 Intertextuality in the Punica 5.4 Silius’ Ancient and Early Modern Reception 5.5 Silius in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 5.6 Silius’ Resistance to Redemption 5.7 The Future of the Punica Bibliography Index