This book by one of the preeminent Virgil scholars of our day is the first comprehensive study of ekphrasis in Virgil’s final masterpiece, the Aeneid. Virgil uses ekphrasis―a self-contained aside that generates a pause in the narrative to describe a work of art or other object―to tell us something about the grander text in which it is embedded, says Michael C. J. Putnam. Individually and as a group, Virgil’s ekphrases enrich the reader’s understanding of the meaning of the epic. Putnam shows how the descriptions of works of art, and of people, places, and even animals, provide metaphors for the entire poem and reinforce its powerful ambiguities.Putnam offers insightful analyses of the most extensive and famous ekphrases in the Aeneid―the paintings in Juno’s temples in Carthage, the Daedalus frieze, and the shield of Aeneas. He also considers shorter and less well known examples―the stories of Ganymede, the Trojan shepherd swept into the sky by an amorous Jupiter; the fifty daughters of Danaus, ordered by their father to kill their husbands on their wedding night; and Virgil’s original tale of a domesticated wild stag whose killing sparks a war between Trojans and Italians. These ekphrases incorporate major themes of the Aeneid, an enduring formative text of the Western tradition, and provide a rich variety of interpretive perspectives on the poem.

Virgil's Epic Designs: Ekphrasis in the Aeneid

Literature & Fiction

Putnam, Michael C.J.

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

This is the first book devoted to Horace’s Carmen Saeculare, a poem commissioned by Roman emperor Augustus in 17 B.C.E. for choral performance at the Ludi Saeculares, the Secular Games. The poem is the first fully preserved Latin hymn whose circumstances of presentation are known, and it is the only lyric of Horace we can be certain was first presented orally.Michael C. J. Putnam offers a close and sensitive reading of this hymn, shedding new light on the richness and virtuosity of its poetry, on the many sources Horace drew on, and on the poem’s power and significance as a public ritual. A rich and compelling work, this poem is a masterpiece, Putnam shows, and it represents a crucial link in the development of Rome’s outstanding lyric poet.

Horace's "Carmen Saeculare": Ritual Magic and the Poet`s Art

The Complete Poems of Tibullus: An En Face Bilingual Edition

Tibullus is considered one of the finest exponents of Latin lyric in the golden age of Rome, during the Emperor Augustus’s reign, and his poetry retains its enduring beauty and appeal. Together these works provide an important document for anyone who seeks to understand Roman culture and sexuality and the origins of Western poetry. • The new translation by Rodney Dennis and Michael Putnam conveys to students the elegance and wit of the original poems. • Ideal for courses on classical literature, classical civilization, Roman history, comparative literature, and the classical tradition and reception. • The Latin verses will be printed side-by-side with the English text. • Explanatory notes and a glossary elucidate context and describe key names, places, and events. • An introduction by Julia Haig Gaisser provides the necessary historical and social background to the poet’s life and works. • Includes the poems of Sulpicia and Lygdamus, transmitted with the text of Tibullus and formerly ascribed to him.

Complete Poems of Tibullus: An En Face Bilingual Edition

Tibullus, Albius

Gaisser, Julia Haig

Dennis, Rodney G.

University of California Press

The description for this book, Essays on Latin Lyric, Elegy, and Epic, will be forthcoming.

Essays on Latin Lyric, Elegy, and Epic (Princeton Series of Collected Essays)

Princeton University Press

   The Description for this book, Virgil's Pastoral Art, will be forthcoming.

Virgil's Pastoral Art

The description for this book, Virgil's Poem of the Earth: Studies in the Georgics, will be forthcoming.

Virgil's Poem of the Earth: Studies in the Georgics

Reference

Princeton Univ Pr

The Description for this book, Essays on Latin Lyric, Elegy, and Epic, will be forthcoming.

The lives of Catullus and Horace overlap by a dozen years in the first century BC. Yet, though they are the undisputed masters of the lyric voice in Roman poetry, Horace directly mentions his great predecessor, Catullus, only once, and this reference has often been taken as mocking. In fact, Horace's allusion, far from disparaging Catullus, pays him a discreet compliment by suggesting the challenge that his accomplishment presented to his successors, including Horace himself. In Poetic Interplay, the first book-length study of Catullus's influence on Horace, Michael Putnam shows that the earlier poet was probably the single most important source of inspiration for Horace's Odes, the later author's magnum opus.
 Except in some half-dozen poems, Catullus is not, technically, writing lyric because his favored meters do not fall into that category. Nonetheless, however disparate their preferred genres and their stylistic usage, Horace found in the poetry of Catullus, whatever its mode of presentation, a constant stimulus for his imagination. And, despite the differences between the two poets, Putnam's close readings reveal that many of Horace's poems echo Catullus verbally, thematically, or both. By illustrating how Horace often found his own voice even as he acknowledged Catullus's genius, Putnam guides us to a deeper appreciation of the earlier poet as well.

Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace (Martin Classical Lectures)

Horace's first three books of odes are universally acknowledged to be masterpieces. His fourth, which appeared ten years later, continues to be relatively neglected. The eminent classicist Michael C. J. Putnam here offers the first comprehensive study of the fourth book of odes. In his view, Horace's last work is at once the culmination of his poetic career and a beautifully crafted composition of exceptional power and brilliance.Putnam discusses each of the fifteen odes found in the book, studying the work both as a whole and as a series of interactive units. Always conscious of the historical and social contexts in which the poems were written, he maintains that the fourth book not only expands the intellectual horizons of the three earlier books, but also draws upon, and responds to, two works of genius by other poets: Propertius's third book of elegies and Virgil's Aeneid. Putnam shows how Horace co-opted and remolded their imaginative detail in his own poetry and how the parallels between Horace's writings and those of his predecessors can help to illuminate the final flowering of Horatian lyric.

Artifices of Eternity: Horace's Fourth Book of Odes (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology)

Cornell Univ Pr

Artifices of Eternity: Horace's Fourth Book of Odes (Townsend Lectures Series)

Cornell University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Putnam, Michael C.J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Putnam, Michael C.J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Putnam, Michael C.J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Virgil's Epic Designs: Ekphrasis in the Aeneid

Horace's "Carmen Saeculare": Ritual Magic and the Poet`s Art

Complete Poems of Tibullus: An En Face Bilingual Edition

Essays on Latin Lyric, Elegy, and Epic (Princeton Series of Collected Essays)

Virgil's Pastoral Art

Virgil's Poem of the Earth: Studies in the Georgics

Essays on Latin Lyric, Elegy, and Epic (Princeton Series of Collected Essays)

Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace (Martin Classical Lectures)

Artifices of Eternity: Horace's Fourth Book of Odes (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology)

Artifices of Eternity: Horace's Fourth Book of Odes (Townsend Lectures Series)