Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois, 1955. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 285-289).

No description available.

This thesis looks at how the Roman poet Lucan uses the character of Cato to elucidate his beliefs about Fortune and Stoicism. The traditional Stoic view of Fortune views it as a force for good that allows people to improve through hardship. Lucan portrays Fortune as a purely antagonistic force that actively seeks to harm the Roman people and corrupt even good individuals like Cato. Lucan's Fortune arranges events to place Cato in a situation where it is impossible to maintain his virtue. Rather than providing him an opportunity to improve in the civil war, Fortune makes it so that whatever choice Cato makes, he becomes guilty. Brutus' dialogue with Cato in Book 2 of Pharsalia illuminates the position that Cato is in. Brutus looks to Cato as the traditional Stoic exemplar that can forge a path for virtue in civil war. However, Cato admits that joining any side in the civil war would cause him to become guilty. Fortune's support of Caesar and its dominance over contemporary events has forced Cato into this situation. Cato's desert march in Book 9 continues to show Fortune's dominance over Cato by continually denying him opportunities to gain virtue for himself. Lucan's portrayal of Fortune shows his rejection of Stoic teaching about Fortune and the ultimate futility of trying to remain virtuous in a time of civil war.

This thesis represents the first full-scale, English commentary on the opening book of Lucan�s epic poem, De Bello Ciuili, in sixty-five years. Its fundamental purpose is to explain the language and content of the Latin text of the book. The subject matter of the thesis beyond the introduction is naturally dependent upon the content of each individual line under consideration, but the following questions may help establish some of the larger issues I have prioritised throughout my response to the Latin text of book one. These questions may be variously relevant to an episode within book one of De Bello Ciuili, or else a sentence, a line, a word, a metrical issue, or a combination of these. How does it help locate the text within the genre of epic? What does it contribute to the overall meaning of the poem? What does it contribute to our understanding of epic narrative technique? What does it contribute to our understanding of Lucan�s poetic usage and technique? How does it interact with the rest of the poem (i.e. what are the structural or intratextual markers advertised and what do they contribute to the meaning of the passage under consideration or the structure of the book or poem as a whole)? How does it interact with its (especially epic) models (i.e. what intertextual markers are at work and how does the invocation of earlier models affect the meaning of the passage under consideration)? How does it behave in relation to what we know of the norms espoused by Classical literary criticism? What are the programmatic issues, themes, and images explored or established by book one?

This thesis represents the first full-scale, English commentary on the opening book of Lucan�s epic poem, De Bello Ciuili, in sixty-five years. Its fundamental purpose is to explain the language and content of the Latin text of the book. The subject matter of the thesis beyond the introduction is naturally dependent upon the content of each individual line under consideration, but the following questions may help establish some of the larger issues I have prioritised throughout my response to the Latin text of book one. These questions may be variously relevant to an episode within book one of De Bello Ciuili, or else a sentence, a line, a word, a metrical issue, or a combination of these. How does it help locate the text within the genre of epic? What does it contribute to the overall meaning of the poem? What does it contribute to our understanding of epic narrative technique? What does it contribute to our understanding of Lucan�s poetic usage and technique? How does it interact with the rest of the poem (i.e. what are the structural or intratextual markers advertised and what do they contribute to the meaning of the passage under consideration or the structure of the book or poem as a whole)? How does it interact with its (especially epic) models (i.e. what intertextual markers are at work and how does the invocation of earlier models affect the meaning of the passage under consideration)? How does it behave in relation to what we know of the norms espoused by Classical literary criticism? What are the programmatic issues, themes, and images explored or established by book one?

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 238 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-238).

Inaug.-diss.--Leipzig. / Cover title. Vita. "Index librorum": p. [vi]-vii.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on October 25, 2007 Includes bibliographical references.

The Lucan gospel alone makes mention of the census of Quirinius in relation to the birth of Jesus (2:2). This temporal marker has consequently been used to date the birth of Jesus, but not without problems. The census reference, when understood in relation to its historical referent, causes chronological incongruity and faulty technical details within the Lucan narrative. In contrast to the many attempts which seek to maintain the historical integrity of the Lucan gospel by reconciling temporal incongruity, I contend that the census is a constituent element of the narrative. As such, the key to understanding the census reference lies in appreciating its narrative function rather than its unlikely referential function. This thesis involves a narrative-critical analysis of Luke 1-3. After an examination of the state of the Quirinius question in chapter one, I investigate three ways in which the census of Quirinius interacts with the other elements of the narrative in Luke 1-3. In the second chapter the census is discussed as a part of the setting of the narrative. Through temporal analysis I demonstrate that the census is an integral part of the Lucan temporal framework. The third chapter focuses on plot in Luke 1-3, and shows how the census contributes to its overall development. Lastly, I explore the narrative processes of characterization which contrast the respective roles of Jesus and John. The census assists in distinguishing Jesus as the primary agent of God. The analysis of these three aspects of the narrative illustrates that the census of Quirinius is an essential component, skilfully interwoven with the other elements of the narrative. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Literary histories of specific genres like tragedy or epic typically concern themselves with influence and deviation, tradition and innovation, the genealogical links between authors and the forms they make. Renaissance scholarship is particularly suited to these accounts of generic evolution; we read of the afterlife of Senecan tragedy in English drama, or of the respective influence of Virgil and Lucan on Renaissance epic. My study of epic poetry differs, though: by insisting on the primacy of material conditions, social organization and especially information technology to the production of literature, I present a discontinuous series of set pieces in which any given epic poem—the Iliad, the Aeneid, or The Faerie Queene—is structured more by local circumstances and methods than by authorial responses to distant epic predecessors. Ultimately I make arguments about how modes of literary production determine the forms of epic poems. Achilleus’ contradictory and anachronistic funerary practices in Iliad 23, for instance, are symptomatic of the accumulative transcription of disparate oral performances over time, which calls into question what, if any artistic ‘unity’ might guide scholarly readings of the Homeric texts. While classicists have conventionally opposed Virgil’s Aeneid to Lucan’s Bellum Civile on aesthetic and political grounds, I argue that both poets endorse the ethnographic-imperialist ideology ‘virtus at the frontier’ under the twin pressures of Julio-Claudian military expansion and the Principate’s instrumentalization of Roman intellectual life in its public library system. Finally, my chapter on Renaissance English epic demonstrates how Spenser and Milton grappled with humanist anxieties about the political utility of the classics and the unmanageable archive produced by print culture. It is my hope that this thesis coheres into a narrative of a particularly long-lived genre, the epic, and the mutations and adaptations it underwent in oral, manuscript, and print contexts.