Search for the Self in Statius' Thebaid

Introduction

The aim of this project is to provide a sustained analysis of the concept of self in Statius’ Thebaid. It is this project’s contention that the poem is profoundly interested in ideas of identity and selfhood.

Poetic and Thematic Exploration

The poem stages itself as a metapoetic exploration of the difficulties for a belated epicist in finding a place in the literary canon; it shows the impossibility of squaring large-scale epic poetics with small-scale, finely-wrought Callimacheanism; it reflects the violent disjunction between Statius’ authorial pose as a poet without power and the extreme violence of his poetics; it opens up the intricacies of constructing original, coherent characters out of intertextual, exemplary models.

Central Tenet

The central tenet of the project is that Statius in the Thebaid stages his own ''death'', but does so that his poem may live.

Audience and Relevance

This book is intended for an academic audience including undergraduate and graduate students as well as specialists in the field. Although the project will be of primary importance to readers of Flavian literature, it will also be of interest to those who study intertextuality and characterisation in Roman literature more generally, selfhood and identity in Roman literature and culture and the reception of Roman literature.