Motion in Classical Literature: Homer, Parmenides, Sophocles, Ovid, Seneca, Tacitus, Art

Classical literature is full of humans, gods, and animals in impressive motion, though motion has yet to receive significant attention in scholarship and criticism. This volume explores how it is treated in a range of Greek and Latin works, including Homer’s Iliad, Sophocles’ Philoctetes, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Tacitus’ Annals, and analyses particular passages in detail in order to draw out its features and significance. Visual art is also discussed in a separate chapter, which highlights how art and literature portray motion quite differently. The wealth of interpretive possibilities across genres opens up a new and stimulating approach to familiar works; as suggested in the volume’s conclusion, this approach may be applied with equally productive results to the literature of successive eras.