Statius' Achilleid is a playful, witty, and open-ended epic in the manner of Ovid. As we follow Achilles' metamorphosis from wild boy to demure girl to lover to hero, the poet brilliantly illustrates a series of contrasting codes of behaviour: male and female, epic and elegiac. This first full-length study of the poem addresses not only the narrative itself, but also sets the myth of Achilles on Scyros within a broad interpretive framework. The exploration ranges from the reception of the Achilleid in Baroque opera to the anthropological parallels that have been adduced to explain Achilles' transvestism. The study's expansive approach, which includes Ovid and Ovidian reception, psychoanalytic perspectives and theorizations of gender in antiquity, makes it essential reading not only for students of Statius, but for students of Latin literature, and of gender in antiquity.
This book provides vocabulary and commentary to Statius' unfinished epic poem Achilleid ("[The book or story] of Achilles"), which was intended to tell the life of the hero Achilles from his youth to his death at Troy. The one book and part of a second that survive (a total of 1,128 lines) recount Achilles' life from his time with the centaur Chiron to an episode in which his mother, the sea goddess Thetis, disguises him as a girl on the island of Scyros, where he falls in love with, rapes, and impregnates the princess Deidamia, who gives birth to a son, Pyrrhus. Or, to put it in somewhat different (and far more eloquent) words: "It is about a wild boy brought up in the disappointment of lost immortality, his first experience of human culture, his encounter with the odd puzzle of sex and gender; and it dramatizes the emergence, despite Achilles' confused family circumstances and lack of clear paternal guidance, of his innate virtue and destiny as an epic hero. It is thus a meditation on sons, mothers, foster-fathers and biological fathers, men and animals, men and gods, sex as power, gender as a cultural construction, and gender as innate and essential." (P. J. Heslin, The Transvestite Achilles [Cambridge, 2005], 297) The notes explicate certain syntactical and grammatical aspects that may be challenging for intermediate-advanced students, point out some (not all!) of the various literary/rhetorical figures and tropes that are employed, and supply information on historical, social, cultural, and literary issues raised by Statius' text. In order to encourage reading of the text out loud (an essential component of Latin verse's literary and musical essence, and one that often works hand-in-glove with the literary/rhetorical figures and tropes used, a section of the introduction is devoted to dactylic hexameter, the meter in which Statius' poem - like that of nearly all Latin epics - is written. Also included is John Gower's "Tale of Achilles and Deidamia," a Middle English retelling from the year 1390 of the central episode of Statius' Achilleid. For Gower's verses, glosses of words and idioms whose spelling and/or meaning has changed considerably since his time have been provided to assist the reader in understanding this fascinating offspring of Statius' poem.
I would urge anyone who thinks that Statius only wrote gruesome epic and Claudian only dull panegyric to read this slim and sprightly volume.--Bryn Mawr Classical Review
A classical epic of fratricide and war, the Thebaid retells the legendary conflict between the sons of Oedipus—Polynices and Eteocles—for control of the city of Thebes. The Latin poet Statius reworks a familiar story from Greek myth, dramatized long before by Aeschylus in his tragedy Seven against Thebes. Statius chose his subject well: the Rome of his day, ruled by the emperor Domitian, was not too distant from the civil wars that had threatened the survival of the empire. Published in 92 A.D., the Thebaid was an immediate success, and its fame grew in succeeding centuries. It reached its peak of popularity in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, influencing Dante, Chaucer, and perhaps Shakespeare. In recent times, however, it has received perhaps less attention than it deserves, in large part because there has been no accessible, dynamic translation of the work into English. Charles Stanley Ross offers a compelling version of the Thebaid rendered into forceful, modern English. Casting Statius's Latin hexameter into a lively iambic pentameter more natural to the modern ear, Ross frees the work from the archaic formality that has marred previous translations. His translation reinvigorates the Thebaid as a whole: its meditative first half and its violent second half; its intimate portrayal of defeat and retribution, and the need to seek justice at any cost. In a wide-ranging introduction, Ross provides an overview of the poem: its composition, reception and legacy; its major themes and literary influences; and its place in Statius' life. And in a helpful series of notes, he offers background information on the major characters and incidents. -- Paolo Asso
Brill’s Companion to Statius is the first companion volume to be published on arguably the most important Roman poet of the Flavian period. Thirty-four newly commissioned chapters from international experts provide a comprehensive overview of recent approaches to Statius, discuss the fundamental issues and themes of his poetry, and suggest new fruitful areas for research. All of his works are considered: the Thebaid, his longest extant epic; the Achilleid, his unfinished epic; and the Silvae, his collected short poetry. Particular themes explored include the social, cultural, and political issues surrounding his poetry; his controversial aesthetic; the influence of his predecessors upon his poetry; and the scholarly and literary reception of his poetry in subsequent ages to the present.
"Published as part of the E.H. Gombrich lecture series, cosponsored by the Warburg Institute and Princeton University Press. The lectures upon which this book is based were delivered in October 2014"--Copyright page.
The Thebaid, a Latin epic in twelve books by Statius (c. 45–96 C. E.) reexamines events following the abdication of Oedipus, focusing on the civil war between the brothers Eteocles, King of Thebes, and Polynices, who comes at the head of an army from Argos to claim his share of royal power. The poem is long—each of the twelve books comprises over eight hundred lines—and complex, and it exploits a broad range of literary works, both Greek and Latin. Severely curtailed though he was by the emperor Domitian and his Reign of Terror, Statius nevertheless created a meditation on autocratic rule that is still of political interest today. Popular in its own time and much admired in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance—most notably by Dante and Chaucer—the poem fell into obscurity and has, for readers of English, been poorly served by translators. Statius composed his poem in dactylic hexameters, the supreme verse form in antiquity. In his hands, this venerable line is flexible, capable of subtle emphases and dramatic shifts in tempo; it is an expressive, responsive medium. In this new and long-awaited translation the poet Jane Wilson Joyce employs a loose, six-beat line in her English translation, which allows her to reveal something of the original rhythm and of the interplay between sentence structure and verse framework. The clarity of Joyce's translation highlights the poem's superb versification, sophisticated use of intertextuality, and bold formal experimentation and innovation. A substantial introduction and annotations make this epic accessible to students of all levels.
This collection addresses the role of ritual representations and religion in the epic poems of the Flavian period. Drawing on various studies on religion and ritual and the relationship between literature and religion in the Greco-Roman world, it explores the poets' use of the relationship between gods and humans and religious activities.
The study of the deliberate allusion by one author to the words of a previous author has long been central to Latin philology. However, literary Romanists have been diffident about situating such work within the more spacious inquiries into intertextuality now current. This 1998 book represents an attempt to find (or recover) some space for the study of allusion - as a project of continuing vitality - within an excitingly enlarged universe of intertexts. It combines traditional classical approaches with modern literary-theoretical ways of thinking, and offers attentive close readings, innovative perspectives on literary history, and theoretical sophistication of argument. Like other volumes in the series it is among the most broadly conceived short books on Roman literature to be published in recent years.
