Civil War Lucan

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.445).Xérxes I (reigned.485–65 BC) Persian king who crossed the Hellespont and invaded Greece with a massive army, was beaten by Athens at Salamis in 480, and retreated (2.710, 3.300).Zéphyr The west wind (4.79, 5.619, 6.377, 9.523, and elsewhere as “the west wind[s]”).NOTES1.For the evidence and arguments see Nisbet, “Felicitas at Surrentum (Statius Silvae II.2),” Journal of Roman Studies 1978, pp.1–11.2.The title Pharsalia, by which Lucan’s epic has also been known in recent centuries, has no authority in antiquity or the manuscript tradition, which referred to it as either Bellum Civile or De Bello Civili.3.Johnson, Momentary Monsters: Lucan and His Heroes (Ithaca, 1987), p.46.4.Sallust, Histories, frag.12, trans.Woodman (Penguin, 2007),p.144.5.On these grounds some critics have argued that Lucan intended to end the poem where it does; but the most we can say for certain is that he brought his ending into alignment with Caesar’s text before he very suddenly died, not that he intended to leave it this way (which cannot be proven either way).6.Sallust, Histories, frag.11, pp.143–44.7.This reading of Lucan responds to Sklenar (2003), who in turn critiques his key interpretive model, Johnson 1987.In a world without gods, goodness may be futile, but such an (epic) vision does not of itself extricae humankind from the mortal coils of existence: even nihilism must give way to practical—moral—choices of how to live (even if one choice is not to live, to die, an option rehearsed again and again in Bellum Civile).8.Fortuna occurs 146 times, forms of felix (“lucky, favored by fortune”) 45 times, and forms of fatum (singular, “fate, doom, death”) and fata (plural, “fate, the Fates”) 258 times.9.Trans.Carter (Oxford, 2008), pp.113, 115.10.Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.85, trans.McGregor (Penguin, 1972), p.230.11.On such grounds critics such as Sklenar (2003) interpret Lucan as a nihilist.12.These and the following remarks draw upon D’Alessandro Behr’s Feeling History: Lucan, Stoicism, and the Poetics of Passion (Columbus, OH, 2007).13.Ibid., pp.7, 181.14.Seneca, Moral Epistles, 95.33–35, 70.25–26; discussed in M.Leigh, Lucan, Spectacle and Engagement (Oxford, 1997), pp.259ff.15.For a full and intelligent study of Roman suicide see T.Hill, Ambitiosa Mors: Suicide and Self in Roman Thought and Literature (New York, 2004), with a long chapter on Lucan.16.See discussion in Feeney, The Gods in Epic (Oxford, 1991), pp.263–64.17.The critical afterlife of this notion has been torturous, often leading to rather ridiculous absurdities: for instance, Morford obligingly retraces the tired question only to reach the conclusion, “Yet Lucan’s Bellum Civile is a poem; it is not a speech (or a series of declamations) or, by any stretch of the imagination, could it be called history.It is epic, but epic that has changed its terms” (The Poet Lucan [New York, 1967], p.87).It is worth recalling, however, that history is exactly what the carping ancient critics called it.18.These are the Commenta Bernensia and the less full Adnotationes super Lucanum, which give typical grammatical and stylistic notes, historical and cultural explanations, and constant cross-references to Virgil.19.Augustine was familiar enough with Lucan to quote him several times, even for casual purposes, in City of God, where he tends, very much like Lucan, to read Roman history and even Virgil’s Aeneid in the scathingly harsh light of Sallust’s historical works.20.Arnulf’s work is known as the Glosule super Lucanum.21.The whole poem was discovered, in manuscript among private papers, by Allan Pritchard and published only in 1973 (Abraham Cowley: The Civil War, Toronto).22.Among the several scholars of early modern England tracing Lucan’s influence, D.Norbrook and A.Shifflett deserve special mention (see Suggestions for Further Reading).Their works have helped trace the fertile impact of Lucan on authors such as May, Jonson, Marvell, and Milton, especially in regard to notions of political engagement.23 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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