Layers of Lessons in Roman Didactic Poetry: “Obvious Matter” and “Real Themes” in the Georgics and Cynegetics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17851/2317-2096.29.3.307-324Keywords:
didactic poetry, teaching, Virgil, NemesianAbstract
In this article we intend to focus on the way two didactic poems in Latin literature organized the layers of lessons incorporated into their verses. These poems are Virgil’s Georgics (1st century B.C.E.) and Nemesian’s Cynegetics (3rd century C.E.). Based on the ideas of Bernd Effe (1977), who postulated that “transparent” didactic poems incorporate their “obvious matter” and “non-obvious themes” keeping them separated, we will try to show that these matters coexist inside both the texts of the Georgics and the Cynegetics (agronomy and hunting) with different themes, which are, in fact, placed more at the core of their authors’ pedagogical concerns.
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