The first step in providing a proper analysis of the dramatic view Lucius Anneus Seneca held, in regards to his tragedy works, is to investigate his language and precise use of high and pregnant words.
Today’s blog is a guest post from Thijs Porck, a lecturer in the Department of English Language and Culture, Universiteit Leiden. This week Erik's tweet on cat-paws in a fifteenth-century manuscript went viral across facebook and the twittersphere when it was shared and commented on by thousands. Follow @erik_kwakkel today for more animal-themed tweets #manuscriptzoo…
The founding father
Publius Optatianus Porphyrius
Of Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius we ignore both the date of birth and that of death. All we know is that he was praefectus in Rome in 329 and in 333 A.D. and that he appears to have been a Christian. Sent into exile by the Emperor Costantine for motives unknown to us, in order to regain the emperor’s favour he wrote his “Panegyric to the Emperor”. Consisting in thirty one poems, twenty of which composed in a novel kind of figurative poetry, the versus intexti: poems II - II - III - V- VI - VII - VIII - IX -X - XI -XII - XIII - XIV - XVI - XVIII - XIX - XXI - XXII - XXIII - XXIV - XXXI.
Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist ein besseres Verständnis der Kommunikation zwischen Livius und seinen Lesern über Geschichte und die Analyse der vor diesem Hintergrund zu beobachtenden literarischen Techniken. Zu diesem Zweck wird der Text hier programmatisch in seiner Gesamtheit in den Blick genommen und bei seiner Interpretation stets die Perspektive des Rezipienten einbezogen. In einem ersten Schritt wird ab urbe condita zunächst in den politischen und kulturellen Kontext seiner Entstehungszeit im 1. Jh. v. Chr. eingeordnet, die durch einen vielfachen Wandel, nicht zuletzt auf dem Gebiet der Produktion und Rezeption von Historiographie, geprägt war (Kapitel II). Analysiert man Livius’ Werk unter dieser Prämisse, lassen sich verschiedene Darstellungsstrategien – vor allem der abwechslungsreiche Umgang mit dem Verhältnis von Zeit und Erzählung (Kapitel III), die zahlreichen Elemente multiperspektivischen Erzählens (Kapitel IV) und die verschiedenen Techniken zur Erzeugung von Spannung (Kapitel V) – benennen, als deren gemeinsames Ziel die stärkere Involvierung des Rezipienten in den Text gelten kann. Damit geht dann nicht nur eine intensivere Leserbindung, sondern auch die Erzeugung eines Geschichtsbildes einher, in dem historische Ereignisse in ihrem Verlauf und in ihrer Bewertung deutlich offener erscheinen und daher eine aktivere Form der Partizipation des Lesers verlangen.
What were the strategic factors that allowed Rome to absorb repeated body blows and to endure an enemy army in its homeland for more than a decade without succumbing?
Ovid: Metamorphoses. Manuscript: Italy 1380. MS Hunter 445 (V.5.15): Beginning of Book 2 (folio 20r) Ovid‘s vast Latin poem on the theme of transformation incorporates about 250 tales from Greek and Roman mythology. Of enduring popularity, it was widely read and well known in the medieval period. Many of Chaucer’s contemporaries would have been familiar with its stories via a fourteenth century French translation entitled the Ovide Moralisé. This allegorised version of the work imbued the stories with Christian overtones. Chaucer’s poetry is permeated by Ovidian allusions. Most famously, he adapts the story of Ceyx and Alcyone from Book Nine of the Metamorphoses in The Book of the Duchess, written to commemorate the death of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster and wife of John of Gaunt. Shown to the left is the opening to Book Six which tells of Arachne’s transformation into a spider. As can be seen from the pages displayed below, some sections of the work have been very closely read and annotated by a fairly early reader. The manuscript was made in Italy and the colophon at the end of the volume states that the scribe completed writing it on the third of October, 1380.