Early Roman Epic, Part I
03/05/14 • 13 min
Where did Roman epic poetry come from? In the third century BCE Latin literature emerged in the form of drama and epic. Ancient Greek literature was influential, and Rome’s first epic was a kind of Greek-Roman hybrid, appropriately by an author with a Latin and a Greek name; it was a Greek tale, but written in a native Italian form. This lecture will explore how Roman writers founded a distinctive style by infusing Greek epic with Roman material. We’ll also see how problematic early epic is, for it unfortunately survives only in fragments.
Copyright 2014 Rhiannon Evans / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
Where did Roman epic poetry come from? In the third century BCE Latin literature emerged in the form of drama and epic. Ancient Greek literature was influential, and Rome’s first epic was a kind of Greek-Roman hybrid, appropriately by an author with a Latin and a Greek name; it was a Greek tale, but written in a native Italian form. This lecture will explore how Roman writers founded a distinctive style by infusing Greek epic with Roman material. We’ll also see how problematic early epic is, for it unfortunately survives only in fragments.
Copyright 2014 Rhiannon Evans / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
Next Episode
Early Roman Epic, Part II
Where did Roman epic poetry come from? In the third century BCE Latin literature emerged in the form of drama and epic. Ancient Greek literature was influential, and Rome’s first epic was a kind of Greek-Roman hybrid, appropriately by an author with a Latin and a Greek name; it was a Greek tale, but written in a native Italian form. This lecture will explore how Roman writers founded a distinctive style by infusing Greek epic with Roman material. We’ll also see how problematic early epic is, for it unfortunately survives only in fragments.
Copyright 2014 Rhiannon Evans / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/epics-of-rome-308719/early-roman-epic-part-i-44366927"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to early roman epic, part i on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy