The Pharsalia
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.57 (930 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B071HJ8HN7 |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 386 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-07-05 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
The poem is actually funny in many places David R. Slavitt This is a rather dogged translation that misses out on Lucan's dry sense of humor. The poem is actually funny in many places. Or it is in the Latin.
Yet Lucan wrote just such a poem, and Nero, naturally, hated both poem and poet. Idle talk about restoring the Republic had been making the rounds for quite some time, and the ruling Julio-Claudian dynasty did not want such talk taken seriously. If you had been a court poet during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, irritating the megalomaniac ruler would not have been wise. Nero's ire is easy to understand. And one of the things which would have really angered Nero would have been the effort to write an epic poem about the struggle between Pompey and Caesar in which the noble hero (portrayed by Pompey) was the man who fought to preserve the Republic, and the selfish villain (portrayed by Caesar), the man who destroyed it. Besides, the average Roman citizen was primarily interested in economic and political stability. He took poison. Any discussion of the old Republic conjured up evil memories of earlier civil wars. Naturally, his epic work got him into trouble. With soaring rhetoric, thundering speeches, cataclysmic scenes of war, and beautifully written p