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“I Sing of Warfare and a Man of War”

“I Sing of Warfare and a Man of War”. “My soul would sing of Metamorphoses. Unit 3, Lecture 2: The Epic Contrasts of Virgil and Ovid. Historical Background I: (Long View). From Athenian Decline to Hellenistic Empire Peloponnesian war (431-404 BC) means end of Athenian dominance in Greece

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“I Sing of Warfare and a Man of War”

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  1. “I Sing of Warfare and a Man of War” “My soul would sing of Metamorphoses. . .

  2. Unit 3, Lecture 2: The Epic Contrasts of Virgil and Ovid

  3. Historical Background I: (Long View) • From Athenian Decline to Hellenistic Empire • Peloponnesian war (431-404 BC) means end of Athenian dominance in Greece • Expansive ambitions of Phillip of Macedonia (380-336) and his son Alexander the great (356-323) replace independent Greek city states with a “Hellenistic empire” in 4th century BC • This empire was dedicated to spreading Greek culture and language as well as political conquest • After Alexander, empire fell into states fragmented politically but united culturally • Ultimately absorbed by expanding Roman empire

  4. Historical Background (2) Origins and Nature of Roman Republic • Roman origins • Legendary beginnings of “city on the seveh hills” • Etruscan dominance (654-508) • Overthrow of Tarquinius the Pround and establishment of the republic • Roman government • Republican form of government distributed ower among. . . • Consuls • Senate (selected from “patrician” or aristocratic families • Tribunes (representatives of the {“plebians’ before Consuls and Senate • Roman character (“to play a Roman’s [not] a lover’s part”) • Devotion to state • Devotion to family and household gods. • Defined by “citizenship”

  5. Background (3): From Republic to Empire • External expansion • 3 Punic wars to conquer Carthage (246-146 BC) • Wars to South and East conquering Greece, Eygpt, and Middle East • Wars to North and west conquered most of Europe and British Isles • Internal changes • Julius Caesar and nephew Octavian lead change from republican to “imperial” government • Octavian (Caesar Augustus”) creates autocracy and stabilizes empire

  6. Virgil (70-19 B.C.) • His career • Educated “farm boy” from Mantua • Lived during transition from republic to empire • His “Eclogues” and :”Georgics” (poetic discussion of farming techniques!) established fame • Augustus commissioned an epic to glorify Rome • His contradictory character The man who most eloquently sung the majesty and destiny of Rome would never show the hard masculinity of the Roman stock, but would touch . . . Strings of mysticism, tenderness and grace rare in the Roman breed. (Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, 235)

  7. Virgil’s Serious Epic • Two types of epic • “Primary” Epic “The primary epic simply wants a heroic story and cares nothing about great national subject” (Lewis: A reface to Paradise Lost 29). • “Secondary” Epic (a “great subject” as well as a great hero) • Virgil’s great subject: founding of Rome as decreed by gods • A Roman founding myth to rival that of Greeks • Material: shadowy stories of a Trojan hero rescued to found a “new” Troy • Modeled upon the Homeric Epics • First six books are Aeneas’s Odyssey; last six are his Iliad. • Differences: • Historical destiny is foremost unliike Homer • Events in the story have either a predictive or symbolic correspondence to historical developments (i.e., Dido’s curse foreshadowing wars between Rome and Carthage)

  8. Ovid (43 B.C.-17 A.D.), the “anti-Virgil” • His career • Born in pleasant valley of Apennines • Abandoned law carer for intensely eortic and popular poetry such as Amores (14 B.C.) and Ars Amatoria (2 B.C>) • His greatest work is the fast-moving, gracefully written Metamorphoses (“Transformations”) (A.D.7) • Banished and works banned, A.D. 8) • His character • “Light of heart and head” (Durant 253) • Dedicated to Venus, not Mars

  9. Ovid’s “Naughty” Epic • Characteristics of Metamorphosis • “”Epic” only in sense it recites a series of mythological “transformations” from world’s beginning down through history • Polished story-telling • Witty and psychologically penetrating • Constant change of narrative perspective and technique • Contrasts with Virgil • “Unofficial” narration of entertaining misdeeds instead of “official” upholding of public virtue • Great fluidity vs. fixed historical purpose • Undermining rather than exaltation of authority.

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