|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
Parting company with the trend in recent scholarship to treat the
subject in abstract, highly theoretical terms, Magic in Ancient
Greece and Rome proposes that the magic-working of antiquity was in
reality a highly pragmatic business, with very clearly formulated
aims - often of an exceedingly malignant kind. In seven chapters,
each addressed to an important arm of Greco-Roman magic, the volume
discusses the history of the rediscovery and publication of the
so-called Greek Magical Papyri, a key source for our understanding
of ancient magic; the startling violence of ancient erotic spells
and the use of these by women as well as men; the alteration in the
landscape of defixio (curse tablet) studies by major new finds and
the confirmation these provide that the frequently lethal intent of
such tablets must not be downplayed; the use of herbs in magic,
considered from numerous perspectives but with an especial focus on
the bizarre-seeming rituals and protocols attendant upon their
collection; the employment of animals in magic, the factors
determining the choice of animal, the uses to which they were put,
and the procuring and storage of animal parts, conceivably in a
sorcerer's workshop; the witch as a literary construct, the clear
homologies between the magical procedures of fictional witches and
those documented for real spells, the gendering of the witch-figure
and the reductive presentation of sorceresses as old, risible and
ineffectual; the issue of whether ancient magicians practised human
sacrifice and the illuminating parallels between such accusations
and late 20th century accounts of child-murder in the context of
perverted Satanic rituals. By challenging a number of orthodoxies
and opening up some underexamined aspects of the subject, this
wide-ranging study stakes out important new territory in the field
of magical studies.
Horace's Epodes reflect as no other work of Latin poetry does the crisis afflicting Rome in the Forties and Thirties BC, as it passed from a republican to a monarchical system. In its seventeen poems various bogeys which were perceived as instrumental to societal breakdown are outspokenly attacked: the brutal carnage of the civil wars, widespread agricultural disruption, perversion of traditional Roman ethical values, dissolution of social hierarchies, the rampant and highly noxious weed of black magic, and female sexual self-assertion.
Parting company with the trend in recent scholarship to treat the
subject in abstract, highly theoretical terms, Magic in Ancient
Greece and Rome proposes that the magic-working of antiquity was in
reality a highly pragmatic business, with very clearly formulated
aims - often of an exceedingly malignant kind. In seven chapters,
each addressed to an important arm of Greco-Roman magic, the volume
discusses the history of the rediscovery and publication of the
so-called Greek Magical Papyri, a key source for our understanding
of ancient magic; the startling violence of ancient erotic spells
and the use of these by women as well as men; the alteration in the
landscape of defixio (curse tablet) studies by major new finds and
the confirmation these provide that the frequently lethal intent of
such tablets must not be downplayed; the use of herbs in magic,
considered from numerous perspectives but with an especial focus on
the bizarre-seeming rituals and protocols attendant upon their
collection; the employment of animals in magic, the factors
determining the choice of animal, the uses to which they were put,
and the procuring and storage of animal parts, conceivably in a
sorcerer's workshop; the witch as a literary construct, the clear
homologies between the magical procedures of fictional witches and
those documented for real spells, the gendering of the witch-figure
and the reductive presentation of sorceresses as old, risible and
ineffectual; the issue of whether ancient magicians practised human
sacrifice and the illuminating parallels between such accusations
and late 20th century accounts of child-murder in the context of
perverted Satanic rituals. By challenging a number of orthodoxies
and opening up some underexamined aspects of the subject, this
wide-ranging study stakes out important new territory in the field
of magical studies.
|
Martial (Hardcover)
Lindsay C. Watson, Patricia Watson
|
R2,824
Discovery Miles 28 240
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
Marcus Valerius Martialis, or Martial (born between 38 and 41 CE,
died between 102 and 104 CE) is celebrated for his droll,
frequently salacious, portrayal of Roman high and low society
during the first century rule of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and
Trajan. Considered the 'inventor' of the modern epigram, Martial
was a native of Hispania, who came to Rome in the hope of securing
both patronage and advancement. From the bath-houses, taverns and
gymnasia to the sculleries and slave-markets of the capital,
Martial in his famous Epigrams sheds merciless light on the
hypocrisies and sexual mores or rich and poor alike. Lindsay C and
Patricia Watson provide an attractive overview - for students of
classics and ancient history, as well as comparative literature -
of the chief themes of his sardonic writings. They show that
Martial is of continuing and special interest because of his
rediscovery in the Renaissance, when writers viewed him as an
incisive commentator on failings similar to those of their own day.
The later reception of "Martial", by Juvenal and others, forms a
major part of this informative survey.
|
Martial (Paperback)
Lindsay C. Watson, Patricia Watson
|
R818
Discovery Miles 8 180
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
Marcus Valerius Martialis, or Martial (born between 38 and 41 CE,
died between 102 and 104 CE) is celebrated for his droll,
frequently salacious, portrayal of Roman high and low society
during the first century rule of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and
Trajan. Considered the 'inventor' of the modern epigram, Martial
was a native of Hispania, who came to Rome in the hope of securing
both patronage and advancement. From the bath-houses, taverns and
gymnasia to the sculleries and slave-markets of the capital,
Martial in his famous Epigrams sheds merciless light on the
hypocrisies and sexual mores or rich and poor alike. Lindsay C and
Patricia Watson provide an attractive overview - for students of
classics and ancient history, as well as comparative literature -
of the chief themes of his sardonic writings. They show that
Martial is of continuing and special interest because of his
rediscovery in the Renaissance, when writers viewed him as an
incisive commentator on failings similar to those of their own day.
The later reception of "Martial", by Juvenal and others, forms a
major part of this informative survey.
|
You may like...
Poor Things
Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, …
DVD
R449
R329
Discovery Miles 3 290
|