Ennius'' Annals : Poetry and History

Advances the study of Ennius' Annals, a foundational but now fragmentary work of Latin literature, by exploring the cross-fertilization of recent critical approaches to Latin poetry and historiography and by reflecting on the tools and methods conducive to future literary and historical research on the poem.

In the context of recent challenges to long-standing assumptions about the nature of Ennius' Annals and the editorial methods appropriate to the poem's fragmentary remains, this volume seeks to move Ennian studies forward on three axes. First, a re-evaluation of the literary and historical precedents for and building blocks of Ennius' poem in order to revise the history of early Latin literature. Second, a cross-fertilization of recent critical approaches to the fields of poetry and historiography. Third, reflection on the tools and methods that will best serve future literary and historical research on the Annals and its reception. Adopting different approaches to these broad topics, the fourteen papers in this volume illustrate how much can be said about Ennius' poem and its place in literary history independent of any commitment to inevitably speculative totalizing interpretations.