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Chapter 3 - Lucan and Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2019

Nora Goldschmidt
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Summary

The ability of ancient biofiction to become actively political comes to the surface in this chapter. It focuses on biofictional receptions of Lucan’s Bellum ciuile (sometimes called Pharsalia), an epic written under Nero about the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, in and around periods of revolutionary politics, and in particular in early modern England in the period leading up to and following the English revolution and in peri-revolutionary France. At the centre of the ancient and Renaissance biographical tradition about Lucan was the story of how the poet was forced to commit suicide by Nero crudelis (Martial 7.21.3) following his involvement in a plot to assassinate the emperor. For readers working through ideas of republicanism, reading Lucan’s text through the lens of the Life transformed the poet’s death into a function of his own epic, inscribed in the textual discourse of the Bellum ciuile itself.

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Chapter
Information
Afterlives of the Roman Poets
Biofiction and the Reception of Latin Poetry
, pp. 85 - 129
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Lucan and Revolution
  • Nora Goldschmidt, University of Durham
  • Book: Afterlives of the Roman Poets
  • Online publication: 11 November 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316847879.004
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  • Lucan and Revolution
  • Nora Goldschmidt, University of Durham
  • Book: Afterlives of the Roman Poets
  • Online publication: 11 November 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316847879.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Lucan and Revolution
  • Nora Goldschmidt, University of Durham
  • Book: Afterlives of the Roman Poets
  • Online publication: 11 November 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316847879.004
Available formats
×