Edwards, Catharine (2011) Imagining ruins in ancient Rome. European Review of History 18 (5/6), pp. 645-661. ISSN 1350-7486.
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Abstract
The celebration of ruins, their capacity to evoke melancholy and offer consolation, is often characterised as a specifically modern phenomenon. It is also a phenomenon particularly associated with Rome. This article aims to explore the significance of the ruined city as imagined by a number of Roman (and Greek) writers, Virgil and Tacitus in particular. Such ruins often serve as traces of violent ruptures in the history of a city whose literary presences more usually work to emphasise continuity and durability. Through these texts, which describe the ruins of antiquity, the city of Rome could preserve all the nuance of its rich and complex past, both the beauty of the city and its devastation, in the minds of later readers.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies |
| Depositing User: | Catharine Edwards |
| Date Deposited: | 07 Dec 2012 16:32 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 16:59 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/5482 |
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