Classical Epic Tradition

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Univ of Wisconsin Press, Apr 1, 2003 - Literary Criticism - 572 pages

The literary epic and critical theories about the epic tradition are traced from Aristotle and Callimachus through Apollonius, Virgil, and their successors such as Chaucer and Milton to Eisenstein, Tolstoy, and Thomas Mann. Newman's revisionist critique will challenge all scholars, students, and general readers of the classics, comparative literature, and western literary traditions.

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Contents

The Italian Tradition
293
Chaucer and Milton
339
Eisenstein and Pudovkin
399
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Page 381 - Indian mount; or faery elves, Whose midnight revels, by a forest side Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear; At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.
Page 431 - ALL night the dreadless angel, unpursued, Through heaven's wide champain held his way; till Morn, Waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand Unbarr'd the gates of light. There is a cave Within the mount of God, fast by his throne, Where light and darkness in perpetual round Lodge and dislodge by turns...
Page 393 - So saying, her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the Fruit, she pluck'd, she eat: Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her Works gave signs of woe, That all was lost.
Page 142 - Indos 425 ardebat caelo, et medium sol igneus orbem hauserat ; arebant herbae, et cava flumina siccis faucibus ad limum radii tepefacta coquebant: cum Proteus consueta petens e fluctibus antra ibat; eum vasti circum gens umida ponti 430 _exsultans rorem late dispergit amarum.
Page 202 - Apula tantae. 60 vos, o patricius sanguis, quos vivere fas est occipiti caeco, posticae occurrite sannae. 'quis populi sermo est? quis enim nisi carmina molli nunc demum numero fluere, ut per leve severos effundat iunctura unguis? scit tendere versum 65 non secus ac si oculo rubricam derigat uno. sive opus in mores, in luxum, in prandia regum dicere, res grandes nostro dat Musa poetae.
Page 147 - miseram et te perdidit, Orpheu, Quis tantus furor ? En iterum crudelia retro Fata vocant, conditque natantia lumina somnus. lamque vale : feror ingenti circumdata nocte Invalidasque tibi tendens, heu non tua, palmas.
Page 203 - costam longo subduximus Appennino." "Arma virum", nonne hoc spumosum et cortice pingui ut ramale vetus vegrandi subere coctum?' quidnam igitur tenerum et laxa cervice legendum? 'torva Mimalloneis inplerunt cornua bombis, et raptum vitulo caput ablatura superbo Bassaris et lyncem Maenas flexura corymbis euhion ingeminat, reparabilis adsonat echo.
Page 275 - In quella parte ove surge ad aprire Zefiro dolce le novelle fronde di che si vede Europa rivestire, non molto lungi al percuoter...
Page 381 - Since first this subject for Heroic Song Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late; Not sedulous by Nature to indite Warrs, hitherto the onely Argument Heroic deem'd, chief maistrie to dissect With long and tedious havoc fabl'd Knights In Battels feign'd; the better fortitude Of Patience and Heroic Martyrdom...

About the author (2003)

John Kevin Newman is professor emeritus of classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a four-time medal winner for his original poems in Latin, and author of a number of books including Augustus and the New Poetry, Roman Catullus and the Modification of the Alexandrian Sensibility, and Augustan Propertius: The Recapitulation of a Genre.

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