Ut pictura natura: On the Mimetic Interactions Between Human Beings and Nature in the Poetry of Virgil, Ovid, Seneca and Lucan

Authors

Joanna Pypłacz
Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8735-5028

Keywords:

nature, animate nature, inanimate nature, Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, Lucan, human being, myth, mimesis, poetry, response, reaction, represented world, Latin epic poetry

Synopsis

The aim of this study is to determine how the role of Nature as an active participant in the affairs of human beings (in the represented world) evolved over time in Roman literature from the Golden Age to the decadent Silver Age, with its two fathers: Seneca and Lucan. In order to illustrate Nature’s various reactions, the author investigates the devices that were used by Virgil, Ovid and their two Silver-Age successors (and creative emulators) to achieve mimesis and thus allow their audiences to experience these reactions to the fullest extent.

Chapters

  • TABLE OF CONTENTS
  • Introduction .......... 9
  • Chapter 1. The Sympathetic Friend: Nature as a Comforter in Distress .......... 15
  • Chapter 2. The Sea of Sadness: The Poet vs. the Elements .......... 31
  • Chapter 3. The Scene of the Crime: Nex and Nekyia in Seneca’s Thyestes .......... 53
  • Chapter 4. Monsters in the Making: Passions and Their Children in Seneca and Lucan .......... 75
  • Chapter 5. The Drowning World: Lucan and the Archetype of the Flood .......... 109
  • Chapter 6. Natura Discors and the Corrupted Rites in Lucan’s Pharsalia .......... 129
Pyplacz-Ut-pictura-natura

Published

November 28, 2023

Details about the available publication format: Paperback

Paperback

ISBN-13 (15)

978-83-8138-068-3