Parthenope : : the interplay of ideas in Vergilian bucolic / / by Gregson Davis.

• Superior document: Mnemosyne. Supplements ; v. 346. Monographs on Greek and Latin language and literature
• Author: Davis, Gregson.
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum ; 346.; Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum. Monographs on Greek and Roman language and literature.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (191 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This study of the Eclogues focuses on Vergil’s exploration of issues relating to the subject of human happiness ( eudaimonia )–ideas that were the subject of robust debate in contemporary philosophical schools, including the community of émigré Epicurean teachers and their Roman pupils located in the vicinity of Naples (“Parthenope”). The latent “interplay of ideas” implicit in the songs of the various poet-herdsmen centers on differing attitudes to acute misfortune and loss, particularly in the spheres of land dispossession and frustrated erotic desire. In the bucolic dystopia that Vergil constructs for his audience, the singers resort to different means of coping with the vagaries of fortune ( tyche ). This relatively neglected ethical dimension of the poems in the Bucolic collection receives a systematic treatment that provides a useful complement to the primarily aesthetic and socio-political approaches that have predominated in previous scholarship. \'This book is insightful and engaging; amatores of Vergil's Eclogues (scholars, students, or enthusiasts) will find the work accessible and profitable.\' Kristi Eastin, California State University, Fresno

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Prelude: The Poet as Thinker -- Framing a Dialogue on Vicissitude: The Interplay of Ideas in Ecl. 1 -- Fracta cacumina: The Consolation of Poetry and Its Limitations(Ecl. 9) -- Vicissitude Writ Large: The Ontology of the Golden Age (Ecl. 4) -- Coping with Death: The Interplay of Lament and Consolation in Ecl. 5 -- Coping with Erotic Adversity: Carmen et Amor (Ecl. 2 and 8) -- Erotic Vicissitude Writ Large (Ecl. 6) -- “Ecquis erit modus?”: The Vergilian Critique of Elegiac amor (Ecl. 10) -- Postlude: dulcis Parthenope -- Works Cited -- Index.