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Greek Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2022

Malcolm Heath
Malcolm Heath*
Affiliation:
University of Leeds, UK
*
[email protected]
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Extract

The influence of Greek poetry on Latin poetry is well known. Why, then, is the reciprocal influence of Latin poetry on Greek not so readily discernible? What does that reveal about Greek–Latin bilingualism and biculturalism? Perhaps not very much. The evidence that Daniel Jolowicz surveys in the densely written 34-page introduction to his 400-page Latin Poetry in the Ancient Greek Novel amply testifies to Greek engagement with Latin language and culture on a larger scale than is usually recognized. That this engagement is more readily discernible in Greek novels than in Greek poetry is no reason to dismiss the evidence that the novels provide. On the contrary, the seven main chapters provide ‘readings of the Greek novels that establish Latin poetry…as an essential frame of reference’ (2). In Chapters 1–3 Chariton engages with the love elegy of Propertius, Ovid and Tibullus, with Ovid's epistolary poetry and the poetry of exile, and with the Aeneid. In Chapters 4–5 Achilles Tatius engages with Latin elegy and (again) the Aeneid, and also with the ‘destruction of bodies’ (221) in Ovid, Lucan, and Seneca. In Chapter 7 Longus engages with Virgil's Eclogues and the Aeneid. The strength of the evidence requires only a brief conclusion. Jolowicz's rigorously argued and methodologically convincing monograph deserves to be read widely, and with close attention.

Type
Subject Reviews
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 69 , Special Issue 1: Curses in Context IV: Curse Tablets in the Wider Realms of Execrations, Commerce, Law, and Technology , April 2022 , pp. 135 - 139
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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References

1 Latin Poetry in the Ancient Greek Novel. By Daniel Jolowicz. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xiv + 401. Hardback £90, ISBN: 978-0-19-289482-3.

2 Oppian's Halieutica. Charting a Didactic Epic. By Emily Kneebone. Greek Culture in the Roman World. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xii + 219. Hardback £90, ISBN: 978-1-108-84083-5.

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4 Lucian. True History. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary. By Diskin Clay and James H. Brusuelas. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. viii + 214. Hardback £75, ISBN: 978-0-19-878964-2; paperback £18.99, ISBN: 978-0-19-878965-9.

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