Landscapes of War in Greek and Roman Literature

Literary scholars and ancient historians explore the creation, manipulation, and representation of ancient war landscapes in literature, examining how landscapes can spark armed conflict, dictate its progress, and influence the affective experience of its participants. The book breaks new ground in exploring Greco-Roman literary responses to this complex interrelationship, drawing on current ideas in cognitive theory, memory studies, ecocriticism, and other fields. It explores combatants' perception and experience of war landscapes, the relationship between war and the natural world, symbolic and actual forms of territorial control in a military context, and war landscapes as spaces of memory. Several contributions focus on modern intersections of war, landscape, and the classical past.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 296 pages
Publication date: 22 September 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Literary scholars and ancient historians from around the world delve into the creation, manipulation, and representation of ancient war landscapes in literature in this open access volume. Landscape can ignite armed conflict, shape its course, and influence the emotional experience of its participants. At the same time, warfare reshapes landscapes, both physically and in the way they are perceived and experienced afterward. Landscapes of War in Greek and Roman Literature makes a significant contribution to the study of Greco-Roman literary responses to this intricate relationship. By drawing on contemporary ideas in cognitive theory, memory studies, ecocriticism, and other fields, its individual chapters address questions such as: How did the Greeks and Romans portray the impact of war on the natural world? What distinctions did they make between war zones and other landscapes? How did they encode different war experiences in literary representations of landscape? How was memory linked to landscape during wartime or in its aftermath? And in what ways did ancient war landscapes shape modern experiences and representations of war? The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the University of Groningen.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350192218