Redeeming the Text Latin Poetry and the Hermeneutics of Reception [Paperback]

This book applies some of the procedures of modern critical theory to the interpretation of Latin poetry.Applying modern critical theory to the interpretation of Latin poetry, the author argues for a critical approach wherein the meaning of a text is necessarily involved in the process of reception -- as illustrated through exemplary readings of Virgil, Ovid, Horace and Lucan.Applying modern critical theory to the interpretation of Latin poetry, the author argues for a critical approach wherein the meaning of a text is necessarily involved in the process of reception -- as illustrated through exemplary readings of Virgil, Ovid, Horace and Lucan.This book applies some of the procedures of modern critical theory to the interpretation of Latin poetry. The author argues for an approach that sees the meaning of a text as always and necessarily involved in the process of reception, that is the way it has been read and interpreted from the time of its composition down to the present day. A study of its reception-history facilitates novel and more profitable ways of reading. He illustrates his approach with exemplary readings of Virgil, Ovid, Horace and Lucan.1. Five concepts in search of an author: suite; 2. Rereading Virgil: divertimento; 3. Rereading Ovid and Lucan: cadenzas; 4. Translation as rereading: symphony in three movements; Postscript: redeeming the text, or a lover's discourse. ...Charles Martindale's critical libellus is a fitting companion to the other two books that have so far appeared in the series Roman Literature and its Contexts edited by Denis Feeney and Stephen Hinds. The series' editors cannot be complimented too highly for the bold initiatives they have taken in sponsoring new critical perspectives in a field that, in the past, has been more resistant than responsive to such explorations. New England Classical Newsletter and Journal