AUC Philologica (Acta Universitatis Carolinae Philologica) is an academic journal published by Charles University. It publishes scholarly articles in a large number of disciplines (English, German, Greek and Latin, Oriental, Romance and Slavonic studies, as well as in phonetics and translation studies), both on linguistic and on literary and cultural topics. Apart from articles it publishes reviews of new academic books or special issues of academic journals.
The journal is indexed in CEEOL, DOAJ, EBSCO, and ERIH PLUS.
AUC PHILOLOGICA, Vol 2017 No 2 (2017), 153–169
Firmior Herculea mundus cervice pependit. Searching for the Ideal Form of Government in Claudian’s Epic De Raptu Proserpinae
Iveta Pastyříková
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/24646830.2017.18
published online: 18. 10. 2017
abstract
This article focuses on Jupiter’s reign and on searching for the ideal form of government in Claudian’s mythological epic De Raptu Proserpinae. It suggests an interpretation of Jupiter’s reign which is based on the meaning of the two prefaces of the epic. The characters of the two prefaces, the first sailor in the first preface, and Hercules and Orpheus in the second one, are considered to be models of behaviour which are examined and problematized in the story of the epic. While the narrator does not evaluate Jupiter’s reign explicitly, he presents it as a functional combination of Herculean and Orphean motifs and of the motif of the first sailor’s audacity. Thus De Raptu Proserpinae offers its reader the opportunity to think about what the ideal form of government should be like.
keywords: Claudius Claudianus; De Raptu Proserpinae; prefaces; order; progress; ideal form of government
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Firmior Herculea mundus cervice pependit. Searching for the Ideal Form of Government in Claudian’s Epic De Raptu Proserpinae is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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