draft of 'Statius and the epic tradition', in L.Fratantuono and C. Stark (edd.), 'A Companion to Latin Epic: 14-96 CE' (Wiley-Blackwell), forthcoming (original) (raw)
Related papers
Part IV continues with Monica Gale on Lucretius' De rerum natura, Michael Putnam on Virgil's Aeneid, Carole Newlands on Ovid's Metamorphoses, Shadi Bartsch on Lucan's Pharsalia or Bellum civile, Andrew Zissos on Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, William Dominik on Statius' Thebaid and fragmentary Achilleid, Raymond Marks on Silius Italicus' Punica, Michael Barnes on Claudian's De Bello Gildonico, and Dennis Trout on Latin Christan epics of late antiquity. . . .
Part IV continues with Monica Gale on Lucretius' De rerum natura, Michael Putnam on Virgil's Aeneid, Carole Newlands on Ovid's Metamorphoses, Shadi Bartsch on Lucan's Pharsalia or Bellum civile, Andrew Zissos on Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, William Dominik on Statius' Thebaid and fragmentary Achilleid, Raymond Marks on Silius Italicus' Punica, Michael Barnes on Claudian's De Bello Gildonico, and Dennis Trout on Latin Christan epics of late antiquity. . . .
The Thebaid, Statius' Homeric Epic? Reflections of Domitian's Rome
This dissertation examines the somewhat neglected epic poem the Thebaid of the Silver Age Latin poet Statius. Until recently considered as something of a failure of epic, the Thebaid is actually a complex reflection of Rome under the emperor Domitian. The first chapter examines the many depictions of death, from murder to battle to glorious death, and demonstrates the major persistent theme of futility in war. The second chapter analyses Statius’ use of similes, including an original database of all the Thebaid’s similes, and shows how we can use those similes to identify his focus on the Argive heroes. It also shows that his similes have complex intratextual development to characterise people, such as the pattern of the chief bull simile to criticize Polynices and Eteocles. The third chapter examines how Statius represents both mortal and immortal tyrants, criticising them for their injustice and implicitly comparing them to Domitian. It also analyses how Statius’ characters respond to the tyrants, on whether they sycophantically support them or dare to defy them, even at the cost of their own life. Overall, we can see through the Thebaid a Rome which is intensely concerned with the increasingly autocratic Domitian and the threat of civil war if he was to fall.
I offer a close intertextual reading of the epilogue to Statius' Thebaid (12.810-19) that incorporates the epic and non-epic works of Lucretius, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, and Lucan; I identify nine previously unnoticed or undiscussed intertexts, and examine others in a new light. In this epilogue we find, first, a deep unease with the purposes of imperial Roman epic and the place of the Thebaid within that genre, and second, a bold attempt to separate Roman epic from the Roman empire in order to carve out a new kind of poetic immortality.
A l´intérieur des trois grandes parties de Ia Thébaï'de, Stace structure le récit avec soin, de façon à mettre en relief les idées-clés et à créer certains effets dramatiques et de tonalité. Une lecture linéaire de cette épopée révèle le fait que Stace en a organisé les épisodes en juxtaposant, imbriquant et rappelant des scènes de dialogue, de récit et de description, similaires ou contrastées. Une telle lecture révèle qu´il y avait un modèle cohérent derrière le développement par Stace du récit qui fournit à la Thébaï'de son unité et sa finalité.