The comparative study of the ancient Roman poetry in terms of 'lost hometown'
| Project/Area Number |
15520156
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
ヨーロッパ語系文学
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| Research Institution | Tokyo University of Foreign Studies |
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Principal Investigator |
IWASAKI Tsutomu Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Faculty of Foreign Studies, Associate Professor, 外国語学部, 助教授 (00151720)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2004
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2004)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
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| Keywords | lost hometown / ancient Roman literature / Catullus / Vergil / Horace / morality / 家郷 / 道徳 / イアンボス詩 / 古代ローマ / ホラテイウス |
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| Research Abstract |
We attempted the comparative study of the poems of Catullus, Vergil, and Horace, who lived in the Roman world of the first century B.C., in terms of their common experience of leaving or losing their hometown. The results of our research are as follows.
Catullus' love poems, especially the epigrams concerning his love for Lesbia are characterized by a series of technical terms of 'amicitia', that is Roman gentlemen's reciprocal relationship based on faith and duty. The poet sees his relation with Lesbia from a moral viewpoint and emphasizes 'home' as a place for men and women to form right relationships. In Vergil's Bucolics, a deploring herdsman who has been robbed of his land and has to leave his hometown reflects the poet's experience at the great land confiscations around Mantua, and symbolilzes disorders and moral corruption which the civil war brought about. In Horace's Epodes, the poet calls to Roman people to leave the country collapsing by the civl war and set sail to find a new country. Horace had suffered the defeat at Philippi and had lost his family farm in the confiscations. The poet's crying out of despair comes from his situation at that time.
Catullus' view as to lovers' reciprocal relationship are ethical. It is also because of their awareness of the ethical corruption that Vergil and Horace are craitical of the present state of Rome shaken by the civil war. The ethical sense that these three poets have in common is connected with their native town. In the local towns of north and south Italy where they were born the old-fashioned morals of the Roman people survived more firmly than in Rome. Therefore the traditional morality of their countrymen who respected home and family life influenced their viewpoint greatly.
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Report
(3 results)
Research Products
(3 results)
