Latin Poetry

2014
The Virgil Encyclopedia
Thomas, Richard F, and Jan M Ziolkowski, ed. 2014. The Virgil Encyclopedia. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 1600. Publisher's Version Abstract

The Virgil Encyclopedia is the first comprehensive reference volume to be published in English on Publius Vergilius Maro, the classical Roman poet whose works and thoughts have been at the center of Western literary, cultural, artistic, and pedagogical traditions for more than two millennia. Through more than 2,200 carefully researched entries, scholars and students alike are provided with an in-depth treatment of all aspects of Virgil’s poetry and his immeasurable influence that continues to the present day.

2013
Nagy, Gregory. 2013. “Virgil’s verse invitus, regina … and its poetic antecedents.” More modoque: Die Wurzeln der europäischen Kultur und deren Rezeption im Orient und Okzident, edited by P Fodor, G Mayer, M Monostori, K Szovák, and L Takács, 155–165. Budapest: Forschungszentrum für Humanwissenschaften der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Festschrift für Miklós Maróth zum siebzigsten Geburtstag.
2012
Thomas, Richard F. 2012. “The Streets of Rome: The Classical Dylan.” Reception and the Classics: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Classical Tradition, edited by William Brockliss, Pramit Chaudhuri, Ayelet Haimson Lushkov, and Katherine Wasdin, 134–159. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Virgil: Aeneid Book XII
Tarrant, Richard, ed. 2012. Virgil: Aeneid Book XII. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract

Book XII brings Virgil's Aeneid to a close, as the long-delayed single combat between Aeneas and Turnus ends with Turnus' death – a finale that many readers find more unsettling than triumphant. In this, the first detailed single-volume commentary on the book in any language, Professor Tarrant explores Virgil's complex portrayal of the opposing champions, his use and transformation of earlier poetry (Homer's in particular) and his shaping of the narrative in its final phases. In addition to the linguistic and thematic commentary, the volume contains a substantial introduction that discusses the larger literary and historical issues raised by the poem's conclusion; other sections include accounts of Virgil's metre, later treatments of the book's events in art and music, and the transmission of the text. The edition is designed for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students and will also be of interest to scholars of Latin literature.

2011
Thomas, Richard F. 2011. “Epigram and Propertian Elegy’s Epigram Riffs: Radical Poet/Radical Critics.” Latin Elegy and Hellenistic Epigram: A Tale of Two Genres at Rome, edited by Alison Keith, 67–85. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Horace: Odes I V and Carmen Saeculare
Thomas, Richard F, ed. 2011. Horace: Odes I V and Carmen Saeculare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract

The Carmen Saeculare was composed and published in 17 BCE as Horace was returning to the genre of lyric which he had abandoned six years earlier; the fourth book of Odes is in part a response to this poem, the only commissioned poem we know from the period. The hardening of the political situation, with the Republic a thing of the past and the Augustan succession in the air, threw the problematic issue of praise into fresh relief, and at the same time provided an impulse towards the nostalgia represented by the poet's private world. Professor Thomas provides an introduction and commentary (the first full commentary in English since the nineteenth century) to each of the poems, exploring their status as separate lyric artefacts and their place in the larger web of the book. The edition is intended primarily for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, but is also important for scholars.

2006
Tarrant, Richard J. 2006. “Seeing Seneca Whole?” Seeing Seneca Whole: Perspectives on Philosophy, Poetry and Politics, edited by Katharina Volk and Gareth D Williams, 1–17. Leiden: Brill.
Martial: Liber Spectaculorum
Coleman, Kathleen M. 2006. Martial: Liber Spectaculorum. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract

This book is the first full-scale edition of the so-called Liber spectaculorum by Martial. A comprehensive introduction addresses the role of epigram in commemorating monuments and occasions, the connection between spectacle and imperial panegyric in Martial's oeuvre, characteristics of the collection, possible circumstances of composition and 'publication', transmission of the text, and related issues. Each epigram is followed by an apparatus criticus, an English translation, and a detailed commentary on linguistic, literary, and historical matters, adducing extensive evidence from epigraphy and art as well as literary sources. The book is accompanied by four concordances, five tables, two maps, 30 plates, and an appendix.

2005
Tarrant, Richard J. 2005. “Roads Not Taken: Untold Stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses.” Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 54: 65–89.
2004
Tarrant, Richard J. 2004. “The Last Book of the Aeneid.” Syllecta Classica 15: 103–129.
A Linguistic Commentary on Livius Andronicus
Livingston, Ivy J. 2004. A Linguistic Commentary on Livius Andronicus. New York: Routledge. Publisher's Version Abstract

As the oldest literary Latin preserved in any quantity, the language of Livius shows many features of linguistic interest and raises intriguing questions of phonolgy, morphology and syntax.

P. Ovidi Nasonis Metamorphoses (Oxford Classical Texts)
Tarrant, Richard, ed. 2004. P. Ovidi Nasonis Metamorphoses (Oxford Classical Texts). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Publisher's Version Abstract

For this edition of the Metamorphoses R. J. Tarrant has freshly collated the oldest fragments and manuscripts and has drawn more fully than previous editors on the twelfth-century manuscripts, the earliest extant witnesses to many potentially original readings. He has also given more scope to conjecture than other recent editors, and has been readier than his predecessors to identify certain verses as interpolated. This edition will be indispensable for future study of Ovid's greatest work.

2001
Virgil and the Augustan Reception
Thomas, Richard F. 2001. Virgil and the Augustan Reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract

This book examines the ideological reception of Virgil at specific moments in the past two millennia. It focuses on the emperor Augustus in the poetry of Virgil, detects in the poets and grammarians of antiquity pro- and anti-Augustan readings, studies Dryden's 1697 Royalist translation, and also naive American translation. It scrutinizes nineteenth-century philology's rewriting or excision of troubling readings, and covers readings by both supporters and opponents of fascism and National Socialism. Finally it examines how successive ages have made the Aeneid conform to their upbeat expectations of this poet.