Wendell Clausen

Bio: Wendell Clausen is an academic researcher from University of California. The author has contributed to research in topics: Poetry & Hexameter. The author has an hindex of 14, co-authored 33 publications receiving 938 citations. Previous affiliations of Wendell Clausen include Amherst College & Harvard University.

Callimachus and Latin Poetry

Abstract: Callimachus’ influence on the Latin new poets reflected their aesthetic and ethical rejection of the epic manner in favor of the focused and personal

A Commentary on Virgil Eclogues

Abstract: Surprising though it may seem, this is the first full-scale scholarly commentary in English on Virgil's Eclogues. Written between about 42 and 35 BC, these ten short pastorals are among the best known poems in Latin literature. They have inspired numerous poets - Sidney, Ronsard, and others - and at the same time have held enduring fascination among scholars for their sophistaicated and allusive blend of Theocritean idyll and contemporary Roman history. Professor Clausen's commentary will provide a comprehensive guide to the poems and the considerable scholarship surrounding them, and should be indispensable to all serious students of Virgil's poetry. Special attention is paid throughout the commentary to the important question of Virgil's use of Theocritus and other Hellenistic poets, with translations provided of all Greek passages. There are many new and illuminating observations on Virgil's poetic style and vocabulary, often with reference to his Latin predecessors: Lucretius, Catullus and (virtually unnoticed by previous scholars) Plautus. A third feature of the commentary is a new examination of the plants and trees in the poems - both their exact identification and their significance. There are helpful introductions to each poem, as well as a comprehensive general introduction to the Eclogues as a whole, in which Professor Clausen discusses the nature of ancient pastoral poetry, the structure of the Eclogues, and the composition of a pastoral landscape by Virgil and Theocritus.

Tradition and innovation in Hellenistic poetry

Abstract: Hellenistic poets of the third and second centuries BC were concerned with the need both to mark their continuity with the classical past and to demonstrate their independence from it. In this revised and expanded translation of Muse e modelli: la poesia ellenistica da Alessandro Magno ad Augusto, Greek poetry of the third and second centuries BC and its reception and influence at Rome are explored allowing both sides of this literary practice to be appreciated. Genres as diverse as epic and epigram are considered from a historical perspective, in the full range of their deep-level structures, providing a different perspective on the poetry and its influence at Rome. Some of the most famous poetry of the age such as Callimachus' Aitia and Apollonius' Argonautica is examined. In addition, full attention is paid to the poetry of encomium, in particular the newly published epigrams of Posidippus, and Hellenistic poetics, notably Philodemus.

Art and architecture

Abstract: Greek artefacts, craftsmen and artists had penetrated Rome since regal days; from the second century BC this trickle had become a continuing and influential flood, contributing together with Italic and Etruscan architecture and art, and the developing central Italian and Roman concrete architecture, to the rich tapestry of the art of the capital. Vespasian (69-79), founder of the Flavian dynasty, showed an astute pragmatism in his handling of architecture and art. In the provinces the architectural and art forms characteristic of the Flavian era continued to flourish. Dynamism returned to imperial commissions with the Romano-Spanish Trajan. The age of Hadrian (117-38) proved to be extraordinary, largely because of the extent to which he was able to impress upon it his own many-sided personality: ruler, philhellene, architect, dilettante, poet, traveller and romantic. The rich artistic harvest of the Flavian to the Antonine ages was not just an imperial, but a corporate achievement, one which offered a worthy inheritance to following generations.

The city of Rome and the plebs urbana in the late Republic

Abstract: For people are the City, not the houses or the porticoes or the fora empty of men (Dio lvi .5.3) It is said that Caligula's exasperated wish was that the people of Rome had only a single neck. That they had a single – and very strongly felt – collective identity is, by contrast, our historical problem. Urban populations at all periods suffer from being treated corporately – as the demos , the many, the mob, the multitude, the masses: under such concepts a sneer lies close below the surface, and the dehumanizing effect of the collective designation has never lost its political point. The difficulty is particularly acute in the case of ancient Rome. The population in question was very large (though for reasons that we shall see, quantification poses serious problems, not just of evidence). Secondly, the Roman elite had every reason to develop the vocabulary of disdain, and has processed almost all the information we possess. Thirdly, there were indeed ways in which the plebs Romana was in reality a corporate entity, and really did cohere as a collectivity, so even when the dismissive perceptions of ancient aristocrats have been allowed for, our analysis still has to penetrate an institutional facade before it can depict and explain the differentiations within the Roman populace. Our subject-matter in this chapter is the resident population of the city of Rome; but there are two other collectivities that need to be distinguished. The first, the plebs urbana , was a subset of the urban population; it comprised the Roman citizens resident in the city who were not members of the senatorial or equestrian census-categories: it excluded slaves and foreigners ( peregrini ). The second, the populus Romanus , was the sum of all Roman citizens of whatever status everywhere.