The Cambridge History of Classical Literature ed. by E. J. Kenney, W. V. Clausen (review)

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 183 The voluminous Varro has four and a half pages, Cornelius Nepos two and a half, probably more than he deserved, and the literary mime slightly over one page. This part of CHCL is a definite advance over previous handbooks in English"""a"nd certainly presents recent advances in scholarship, as it set out to do. The general reader may be hindered at times by insufficient references in the text and will find the section on Catullus and new poetry to be challenging. UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO NIGEL B. CROWTHER E. J. KENNEY, W. V. CLAUSEN (edd.). The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Volume 2, Part 3: The Age of Augustus. London and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1982. Paper (1983), U.S. $12.95. ISBN 0-521-27373-0 The Age of Augustus consists of a general introduction to the age and its literature and 8 chapters describing that literature, both extant and lost. Because each author was left free to decide the scope and level of his article, some contributions are elementary introductions, others sophisticated essays better suited to those who al ready know the work. Kenney's introduction, "Uncertainties", is simply too brief to introduce adequately the historical, social and Iiterary background, but it does properly draw attention to the experimental nature of much Augustan literature, its fusion of Greek and Roman elements, its early "infection" by rhetoric. One would like to see more balance in the treatment of pressure for "official" poetry, which is too clearly slanted on the side of those who find resistance. Clausen's contribution on the Eclogues, "Theocritus and Virgil", will not be accessible to the uninitiated. It consists of an introduction, which briefly sketches the principal features of Theocritean pastoral, and 3 essays. "Virgil and Theocritus" (on imitation), liThe book of IEclogues"1 (on the collection as a poetry book), and "Three eclogues" (heterogeneous notes on 1, 4 and 6). The writing is sometimes as elusive as the Eclogues themselves (e.g. "Virgil was different, as, somehow, Virgil always is". 8); and no forest emerges for the trees. The Georgics are discussed by L. P. Wilkinson in a chapter excellently suited to the needs of the uninitiated. Subjects treated include date and political background, literary antecedents and sources, intention and nature, structure (a summary of contents and shifting tone), and aspects of verbal artistry and literary technique. An excursus on the Orpheus episode shows the same lack of dogmatism in a controversial arena as the rest of the chapter. R. D. Williams ' chapter on the Aeneid is another good introductory essay; it sees the poem positively as "a national and patriotic epic" for Augustan Rome. The first section supplies relevant background from both Roman legend and Republican history. 184 BOOK REVI EWS/ COMPTES RENDUS The second considers literary background (Homer, Ennius, etc.), the third composition and structure; here the assertion that the Aeneid II should not be regarded in any important sense as unfinished''COUTd be criticized as excessively dogmatic in an area where certainty is impossible. A section on the main characters gives a sympathetic discussion of Aeneas and briefer ones of Dido and Turnus; another treats destiny and religion. A final section on style and metre gives a detailed but not exhaustive account of metrical and acoustical effects in 4.590-629. In the concise conclusion Will iams perhaps concedes too much to those who contend that Virgilian pathos undermines his optimistic II publicll message; it was only natural that an Alexandrianizing epic should accentuate this element even beyond its prominence in Homer, and equally natural that our sensibilities, shaped by both Romanticism and political cynicism, should be more enchanted by Virgil's exquisite use of it than stirred by his patriotic intention. N. Rudd's chapter on Horace contains 2 parts, II A critique of the traditional stereotypell and IIA critique of the academic dichotomyll. The first subsumes the conventional elements of biography, chronological survey of the oeuvre, and sample criticism, with a healthy emphasis on the nove,---an(f unconventional. The second aims to expose the falseness of some dichotomies to which Horatian criticism customarily resorts (public/private, urban/rural, Stoic/Epicurean) in...