Art & Death in Neronian Culture - Essays
NOTE: These essays will not be set as exam questions in the examination paper. Overlap should be avoided between your pre-submitted essays and the questions you answer in the exam.
ASSESSED ESSAY 1
Deadline: 12 noon, Monday 26th November 2012
Write an essay of approximately 2,500 words on ONE of the following subjects and hand it in to the departmental office (Room 222) by the deadline. Make sure your essay is only identified by your university number from you library card, and that a cover sheet is attached. Ensure that your pages are numbered and that you state a word-count. See the links on the right-hand side of the page for further advice about writing and presenting essays.
1. How far does Tacitus succeed in writing, as he claims at Annales 1.1.3, sine ira et studio (‘without passion or bias’)?
2. How effectively does Tacitus use irony in Annales 13-16?
3. Does a comparison between Tacitus and Suetonius support the view that history is superior to biography?
4. In what sense can the Satyricon be called a ‘novel’?
5. How far is the reader encouraged to identify with Petronius’ first-person narrator?
6. To what extent do the works of Tacitus, Petronius and Suetonius try to teach their readers?
ASSESSED ESSAY 2
Deadline: 12 noon, Tuesday 19th February 2013
Write an essay of approximately 2,500 words on ONE of the following subjects and hand it in to the departmental office (Room 222) by the deadline. Make sure your essay is only identified by your university number from you library card, and that a cover sheet is attached. Ensure that your pages are numbered and that you state a word-count. See the links on the right-hand side of the page for further advice about writing and presenting essays.
1. How important is Lucilius to Seneca’s Epistles?
2. How Stoic was Seneca?
3. How effective is the combination of prose and poetry in Seneca and Petronius?
4. Lucanus ardens et concitatus et sententiis clarissimus, et, ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus - ‘Lucan’s poem is full of fire and energy and famous for epigram; and, to speak my mind, he is a safer model for the orator than for the poet.’ (Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria X. l. 90, transl. Duff.) How important is rhetoric in the works you have studied?
5. How helpful is it to our appreciation of silver Latin literature to know about the lives of its authors?
6. How far is Nero’s influence visible in the works written during his reign?