LUCAN LUCANUSI LUCAN LUCANUSI, But f0r him it might almost have been said that the Roman republic never inspired the Roman muse. Lucan never speaks of himself, but his epic speaks for him. He must have been endowed with no common ambition, industry and self-reliance, an enthusiastic though narrow and aristocratic patriotism, and a faculty for appreciating magnanimity in others. But the only personal trait positively known to us is his conjugal affection, a characteristic of Seneca also. Lucan, together with Statius, was preferred even to Virgil in the middle ages. So late as 1493 his commentator Sulpitius writes: Magnus profecto est Maro, magnus Lucanus; adeoque prope par, ut quis sit major possis ambigere. Shelley and Southey, in the first transport of admiration, thought Lucan superior to Virgil; Pope, with more judgment, says that the fire which burns in Virgil with an equable glow breaks forth in Lucan with sudden, brief and interrupted flashes. Of late, notwithstanding the enthusiasm of isolated admirers, Lucan has been unduly neglected, but he has exercised an important influence upon. one great department of modern literature by his effect upon Corneille, and through him upon the classical French drama. AUTn0RITIEs.The Pharsalia was much cead in the middle ages, and consequently it is preserved in a large number of manuscripts, the relations of which have not yet been thoroughly made out. The most recent critical text is that of C. Hosius (2nd ed. 1906), and the latest complete commentaries are those of C. E. Haskins (1887, with a valuable introduction by W. E. Heitland) and C. M. Francken (1896). There are separate editions of book i. by P. Lejay (1894) and book vii. by J. P. Postgate (1896). Of earlier editions those of Oudendorp (which contains the continuation of the Pharsalia to the death of Caesar by Thomas May, 1728), Burmann (1740), Bentley (1816, posthumous) and Weber (1829) may be mentioned. There are English translations by C. Marlowe (book i. only, 1600), Sir F. Gorges (1614), Thomas May (1626), N. Rowe (1718) and SirE. Ridley (2nd ed. 1905), the two last being the best. | |
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