Roman epic : an interpretative introduction

I. Introduction: Intertextuality and Rhetoric. Roman Epic Poets and Their Readers

II. Livius Andronicus: Inuentio. The Rediscovery of the Odyssey and the Invention of a Poetic Language

III. Naevius: Dispositio. The Clash of Myth and History

IV. Ennius: Elocutio. A Horse Simile or A Clash of Two Cultures. A Hellenistic Poet in an Archaic Society

V. Virgil

1. Prooemium. The Poet and His Reader. The Iliad and the Odyssey as Subtexts to the Proem of the Aeneid

2. Narratio. Aeneas' Account of his Flight

3. Inuentio I. Virgil's View of History in the Catalogue of Heroes (Aen. 6. 679-899)

4. Inuentio II. Turnus, a Tragic Hero? Virgil and Aristotle

5. Dispositio. Double Inversion and the Rhetoric of Silence

6. Elocutio I. Virgil's Similes and the Genesis of the Aeneid

7. Elocutio II. On the Use of Tenses in the Aeneid

VI. Ovid

1. Inuentio. Ovid and His Readers

2. Prooemium. Ovid's Arachne and Human Creativity

3. Elocutio. Similes in Ovid's Metamorphoses and Their Functions

4. Clash of Genres. Gods and Religion in Ovid's Metamorphoses with Special Regard to Venus and Elegy

5. Clash of Systems of Values. The Daughters of Anius

VII. Albinovanus Pedo: Elocutio and Defamiliarization. The Thrill of a First Experience

VIII. Cornelius Severus: Death and Poetic Survival of Oratory

IX. Lucan: The Revival of Epic through Science and Rhetoric

X. Valerius Flaccus: Elocutio. The Myth of Io or the Magic of the Present Participle

XI. Statius: The Futility of Rhetoric. Achilles under the Spell of Beauty (Achilleid 1. 242-396)

XII. Silius Italicus

1. Intertextuality as Guiding Principle of Invention

2. From Elegy to Epic. Claudia Quinta: Beauty under False Suspicion

XIII. Claudian: Poetic Rhetoric and Intertextuality. Proserpina's Tapestry

XIV. Corippus: Transformation of Epic Imagery