Publication details
Didactic Features in Cicero's Translation of Aratus' Phainomena
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| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Citation | |
| Description | Astronomic didactic epos written by Aratus of Soloi was very popular among Romans. Thus it was translated into Latin by a number of Roman authors, among others, by Marcus Tullius Cicero, who worked on the translation in the time of his literary beginnings. The aim of the paper is to find out whether this famous Roman orator only translated the information contained in Aratus' text or whether he also managed to imitate the didactic tone of the poem. In the paper, I examine whether his work performed the task of teaching its readers about the heavens and he managed to play his role as a teacher, or whether he minimized the didactic aspects of the epos and concerned on other features of the text. The main goal of the paper is to analyse the ways in which Cicero applied the features of the didactic poetry genre in his translation. This also includes a comparison of the translation with Aratus' text and with another extant Latin translation – by Germanicus Iulius Caesar. The focus is put on both the ancient and the contemporary requirements and definitions. |
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