Dirae - A Poem from the Appendix Vergiliana: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary

Kayachev, Boris

ISBN 10: 1914535413 / ISBN 13: 9781914535413

Published by Classical Press of Wales, 2024

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 395149508

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Dirae - A Poem from the Appendix Vergiliana: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary
• Publisher: Classical Press of Wales
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1914535413
• ISBN 13: 9781914535413
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The Dirae is a curse uttered, in bucolic hexameters, by an Italian farmer against his former estate confiscated to enable the settlement of Caesarian veterans in the aftermath of the battle of Philippi: this commentary is the first work, in eighty years, to offer a systematic exploration of the poem within the literary and historical context of the Late Republic. At the heart of the volume is a freshly edited Latin text, based on a thorough reappraisal of manuscript evidence and earlier textual scholarship, which in particular aims to restore the poems stanzaic organisation, gravely distorted in the course of transmission. Besides providing an account of the manuscripts and an overview of the poems structure and contents, the introduction discusses at length the Diraes engagement with other poetic texts and traditions, first of all with its sibling the Lydia, but also, crucially, with Greek bucolic, before considering its reception in Virgils Eclogues and later Augustan poetry; it sheds new light too on the Diraes links with Hellenistic curse poetry and with the ritual tradition of inscribed curses. Endorsing a composition period shortly after the poems dramatic date (springsummer of 41 BC) and tentatively reviving the old attribution to Valerius Cato, the introduction also explores the Diraes engagement with the political events and narratives of one of the most dramatic moments of Roman history. The line-by-line commentary provides exegesis of the poems textual, linguistic, literary and historical aspects, with the English translation offering a further point of orientation.

About the Author

Boris Kayachev is a Research Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin. His main interests lie in the literary, textual and linguistic exegesis of Latin poetry, in particular of the Appendix Vergiliana. He has published books on the Ciris (Allusion and Allegory: Studies in the Ciris, De Gruyter, 2016; Ciris, a Poem from the Appendix Vergiliana, Classical Press of Wales, 2020), the Lydia (Lydia, a Poem from the Appendix Vergiliana, OUP, 2023), and now the Dirae.