Beschreibung:
By Prudence J. Jones
This study examines rivers as a literary phenomenon, particularly in the poetry of Vergil. It first considers the Greco-Roman understanding of the river in its primary symbolic roles, cosmological, ritual and ethnographical, and then analyzes the river as a literary device, arguing that descriptions of rivers in Roman poetry are, in many cases, a form of authorial comment on the progress or structure of a narrative.
Chapter 1 Cosmology Chapter 2 Ritual Chapter 3 Ethnography Chapter 4 The River That Talks: Rivers and Poetic Speech Chapter 5 Round Rivers: Okeanos and Bounded Narrative Chapter 6 Agmen Aquarum: River Catalogues Chapter 7 Up the Creek: Upstream Voyages and Narrative Structure Chapter 8 Overflow: The Reception of River Motifs