Lucan's Civil War

We will read selected books of Lucan's Civil War (Bellum Civile) in Latin and the poem in its entirety in English. Alongside the primary goal of refining our facility with Latin language, we will also become increasingly familiar with and sensitive to Lucan's style, his poem's place within the development of Greco-Roman epic, and the socio-political context(s) of his poem's creation (e.g. Nero and the Pisonian conspiracy). Themes to be discussed may include, but are not limited to, the grotestque, epic's both complimentary and critical relationship to empire, ambition and Roman gender constructs, and the dynamics between art and politics.