The Dark Side of Statius' Achilleid

The Dark Side of Statius' Achilleid
Author: Julene Abad Del Vecchio
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2024-07-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0198895224

The Dark Side of Statius' Achilleid explores systematically and for the first time the darker aspects of Statius' Achilleid, bringing to light the poem's tragic and epic dimensions. By seeking to position at centre-stage these darker elements, the book offers several new readings of the Achilleid in relation to its literary inheritance, its gender dynamics, and its generic tensions. This volume delves beneath the surface of a story that ostensibly deals with a light subject matter—the cross-dressing of a young Achilles on Scyros—to offer an in-depth examination of the poem's relationship to its epic and tragic precursors, and to explore its more serious themes. It is shown to challenge traditional epic narratives, examine Achilles' complex familial relationships and his deviant and transgressive heroism, highlight the tragic character of Thetis, and provide glimpses of the horrors that the cataclysmic Trojan War will beget. By looking into Statius' wide-ranging dialogue with his literary predecessors, such as Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Seneca, as well as Statius' previous epic magnum opus, the Thebaid, the multidimensional characterisations of Achilles and other of the poem's key characters, such as Ulysses, Calchas, and Thetis are investigated. Far from simply representing a shameful but essentially humorous cross-dressing episode in Achilles' life that is destined to be forgotten, the Achilleid can be seen to challenge the very fabric of epic by probing the validity and authority of its literary tradition, as well as highlighting its highly innovative and experimental nature.

Statius: Achilleid

Statius: Achilleid
Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2024-07-12
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0198908725

Statius' Achilleid is the most extensive treatment of the myth of Achilles hiding disguised as a girl on the island of Scyros. In the Achilleid, the hero, who had been trained to be an outstanding warrior by the centaur Chiron, complies with a scheme devised by his divine mother, Thetis, who does not want him to sail to Troy since her son is fated to die there. She proposes that he dress as a girl in order to hide himself from the Greeks who wish to enlist him in the martial expedition; despite his inclinations developed by Chiron, Achilles acquiesces, but only in order to pursue his desire for the princess Deidamia. Odysseus and Diomedes, sent by the Greek army, come to Scyros to reclaim Achilles, and the poem depicts the struggles faced by Deidamia and Achilles' future comrades as they coax him in opposite directions. While Achilles tries to sort out his desires, he reflects upon love, family, social obligations, and the lessons that have been imparted to him. Throughout the Middle Ages and up to the current day, Statius' depiction of the great Greek hero has attracted artistic and scholarly attention for its treatment of themes such as education, heroism, fate, and gender and sexuality. Statius' poem, written at the end of the first century CE, also engages deeply with the entirety of the Greek and Roman literary traditions--in particular, epic poems such as the Iliad, the Odyssey, Vergil's Aeneid, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. The Achilleid's reworking of these earlier poems amounts to a tour-de-force reconsideration of the entire genre of epic poetry. This new edition of the Achilleid contains an extensive introduction (encompassing mythological background, details about Statius' language and meter, and a survey of the reception of the poem since late antiquity), a Latin text (based upon recent scholarship) with facing-page English translation, and the first full-scale commentary in English in nearly 70 years.

P. Papinius Statius Volume II

P. Papinius Statius Volume II
Author: Annabel Ritchie
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2009-03-26
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1443808083

Publius Papinius Statius was born in Neapolis (Naples) in about AD 50. The twelve books of his magnum opus, the Thebaid, were published in ca. 92. The Achilleid was begun in ca. 95 and left unfinished at his death in ca. 96. The present work, in three volumes, offers a revised text of the two epics with an apparatus criticus (volume I), a prose translation (volume II), and an extensive secondary apparatus accompanied by discussion of the manuscripts and previous editions (volume III).

The Dark Side of Statius' Achilleid

The Dark Side of Statius' Achilleid
Author: Julene Abad Del Vecchio
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-07-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780198895206

This book provides an in-depth analysis of Statius' Achilleid, an epic poem written in the 1st century A.D. It explores the poem's relationship with its literary precursors and positions at centre-stage its darker elements, offering new readings of the Achilleid in relation to its literary inheritance, gender dynamics, and generic tensions.

Intertextuality in Flavian Epic Poetry

Intertextuality in Flavian Epic Poetry
Author: Neil Coffee
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2019-12-16
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110599759

This collection of essays reaffirms the central importance of adopting an intertextual approach to the study of Flavian epic poetry and shows, despite all that has been achieved, just how much still remains to be done on the topic. Most of the contributions are written by scholars who have already made major contributions to the field, and taken together they offer a set of state of the art contributions on individual topics, a general survey of trends in recent scholarship, and a vision of at least some of the paths work is likely to follow in the years ahead. In addition, there is a particular focus on recent developments in digital search techniques and the influence they are likely to have on all future work in the study of the fundamentally intertextual nature of Latin poetry and on the writing of literary history more generally.

Silvae, Thebaid, Achilleid

Silvae, Thebaid, Achilleid
Author: Publius Papinius Statius
Publisher:
Total Pages: 614
Release: 1928
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN:

THIS EDITION HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A NEWER EDITION

Achilles in Love

Achilles in Love
Author: Marco Fantuzzi
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2012-12-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191626112

Achilles in Love: Intertextual Studies traces the escapades of Achilles' erotic history, whether in same-sex or opposite-sex relationships, and how they were developed and revealed, or elided and concealed, in the writing and visual arts following Homer. The volume investigates how different authors and artists responded to this most controversial aspect of Achilles' character, in comparison to the fiery personality that was shaped by the Iliad and was often considered 'canonical' for his character. Through analyzing Achilles in love from the time of Homer all the way down to the Latin poets of the first century BC and AD, the Ilias Latina, and the authors and iconography of the imperial age, this book makes both novel and productive connections between poetic texts, pictorial images, and literary genres which tried time and time again to capture Achilles' ever-shifting role within the world of eros.