Words and the Poet: Characteristic Techniques of Style in Vergil's Aeneid

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Clarendon Press, 1998 - Literary Criticism - 209 pages
Throughout his vast literary output, to a surprising extent, Vergil avoided artifacts of poetic diction like archaism and grecism, preferring instead ordinary language that grew from the common stock of the Latin tongue such as colloquialisms and prosaisms. This remarkably coherent and readable study identifies and categorizes such diction in Vergil's writings showing further how such comparatively unpromising material was converted by the poet's methods of "combination" (unctura) into poetry. In a critical analysis, Lyne draws parallels between Horace's procedures in combining works to "make them new," and Vergil's bold combinations which veritably extort unexpected and novel sense.

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Contents

Context and Definitions
1
Extortion
20
I
38
Narrative through Imagery
63
II
100
Imagery Extortion Exploitation
128
Incitement
149
Acquisition
178
Bibliography
209
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About the author (1998)

R. O. A. M. Lyne is at Balliol College, Oxford.

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