Gareth D. Williams's Books

The Curse of Exile

A Study of Ovid's Ibis

By: Gareth D. Williams

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The Curse of Exile

A Study of Ovid's Ibis

By: Gareth D. Williams

A radical reassessment of Ovid's curse poem, Ibis, asserting its central place in his poetry of exile.

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Page Count

259

Publisher

Cambridge Philological Society

Published Date

ISBN 10

1913701255

ISBN 13

9781913701253

Pietro Bembo on Etna

The Ascent of a Venetian Humanist

By: Gareth D. Williams

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Pietro Bembo on Etna

The Ascent of a Venetian Humanist

By: Gareth D. Williams

This book is centered on the Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), on his two-year stay in Sicily in 1492-4 to study the ancient Greek language under one of its most distinguished contemporary teachers, the Byzantine émigré Constantine Lascaris, and above all on his ascent of Mount Etna in 1493. The more particular focus of this study is on the imaginative capacities that crucially shape Bembo's elegantly crafted account, in Latin, of his Etna adventure in his so-called De Aetna, published at the Aldine press in Venice in 1496. This work is cast in the form of a dialogue that takes place between the young Bembo and his father Bernardo (himself a prominent Venetian statesman with strong humanist involvements) after Pietro's return to Venice from Sicily in 1494. But De Aetna offers much more than a one-dimensional account of the facts, sights and findings of Pietro's climb. Far more important in the present study is his eye for creative elaboration, or for transforming his literal experience on the mountain into a meditation on his coming-of-age at a remove from the conventional career-path expected of one of his station within the Venetian patriciate. Three mutually informing features that are critical to the artistic originality of De Aetna receive detailed treatment in this study: (i) the stimulus that Pietro drew from the complex history of Mount Etna as treated in the Greco-Roman literary tradition from Pindar onwards; (ii) the striking novelty of De Aetna's status as the first Latin text produced at the nascent Aldine press in the prototype of what modern typography knows as Bembo typeface; and (iii) Pietro's ingenious deployment of Etna as a powerful, multivalent symbol that simultaneously reflects the diverse characterizations of, and the generational differences between, father and son in the course of their dialogical exchanges within De Aetna.

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457

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190272309

ISBN 13

9780190272302

The Cosmic Viewpoint

A Study of Seneca's 'Natural Questions'

By: Gareth D. Williams

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The Cosmic Viewpoint

A Study of Seneca's 'Natural Questions'

By: Gareth D. Williams

Seneca's Natural Questions is an eight-book disquisition on the nature of meteorological phenomena, ranging inter alia from rainbows to earthquakes, from comets to the winds, from the causes of snow and hail to the reasons why the Nile floods in summer. Much of this material had been treated in the earlier Greco-Roman meteorological tradition, but what notoriously sets Seneca's writing apart is his insertion of extended moralizing sections within his technical discourse. How, if at all, are these outbursts against the luxury and vice that are apparently rampant in Seneca's first-century CE Rome to be reconciled with his main meteorological agenda? In grappling with this familiar question, The Cosmic Viewpoint argues that Seneca is no blinkered or arid meteorological investigator, but a creative explorer into nature's workings who offers a highly idiosyncratic blend of physico-moral investigation across his eight books. At one level, his inquiry into nature impinges on human conduct and morality in its implicit propagation of the familiar Stoic ideal of living in accordance with nature: the moral deviants whom Seneca condemns in the course of the work offer egregious examples of living contrary to nature's balanced way. At a deeper level, however, The Cosmic Viewpoint stresses the literary qualities and complexities that are essential to Seneca's literary art of science: his technical enquiries initiate a form of engagement with nature which distances the reader from the ordinary involvements and fragmentations of everyday life, instead centering our existence in the cosmic whole. From a figurative standpoint, Seneca's meteorological theme raises our gaze from a terrestrial level of existence to a more intuitive plane where literal vision gives way to 'higher' conjecture and intuition: in striving to understand meteorological phenomena, we progress in an elevating direction - a conceptual climb that renders the Natural Questions no mere store of technical learning, but a work that actively promotes a change of perspective in its readership.

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408

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199742510

ISBN 13

9780199742516

Banished Voices

Readings in Ovid's Exile Poetry

By: Gareth D. Williams

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Banished Voices

Readings in Ovid's Exile Poetry

By: Gareth D. Williams

This study examines the literary complexities of the poetry which Ovid wrote in Tomis, his place of exile on the coast of the Black Sea after he was banished from Rome by the emperor Augustus in A.D. 8 because of the alleged salaciousness of the Ars Amatoria and a mysterious misdemeanour which is nowhere explained. Exile transforms Ovid into a melancholic poet of despair who claims that his creative faculties are in terminal decline. But recent research has exposed the ironic disjunction between many of the poet's claims and the latent artistry which belies them. Through a series of close readings which offer a new analytical contribution to the scholarly evaluation of the exile poetry, Dr Williams examines the nature and the extent of Ovidian irony in Tomis and demonstrates the complex literary designs which are consistently disguised under a veil of dissimulation. Gareth Williams aims to counteract traditional scholarly antipathy to the exile poetry, which could be said to represent the last frontier in modern Ovidian studies. Scholars working in the field will welcome his insights.

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256

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521451361

ISBN 13

9780521451369

The Cosmic Viewpoint

A Study of Seneca's 'Natural Questions'

By: Gareth D. Williams

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The Cosmic Viewpoint

A Study of Seneca's 'Natural Questions'

By: Gareth D. Williams

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Page Count

408

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199742510

ISBN 13

9780199742516

Banished Voices

Readings in Ovid's Exile Poetry

By: Gareth D. Williams

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Banished Voices

Readings in Ovid's Exile Poetry

By: Gareth D. Williams

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Page Count

256

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521451361

ISBN 13

9780521451369

Pietro Bembo on Etna

The Ascent of a Venetian Humanist

By: Gareth D. Williams

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Pietro Bembo on Etna

The Ascent of a Venetian Humanist

By: Gareth D. Williams

This book is centered on the Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), on his ascent of Mount Etna in 1493, and above all on the striking artistic originality of the elegant Latin work that he wrote about his climb after his return to Venice in 1494: his De Aetna, published at the Aldine press in Venice in 1496.

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Page Count

457

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190272295

ISBN 13

9780190272296

Book's by Gareth D. Williams

The Curse of Exile

The Curse of Exile

Pietro Bembo on Etna

Pietro Bembo on Etna

The Cosmic Viewpoint

The Cosmic Viewpoint

Banished Voices

Banished Voices

The Cosmic Viewpoint

The Cosmic Viewpoint

Banished Voices

Banished Voices

Pietro Bembo on Etna

Pietro Bembo on Etna

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