CONTENTS
Preface
INTRODUCTION
PARALLEL LATIN TEXT AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION
COMMENTARY
Joseph wrote his epic around the year 1180, and revised
it at the court of Henry II of England where he had obtained some
sort of post through the influence of his uncle, Baldwin, Archbishop
of Canterbury. The work is one of a series of texts in Latin and
Anglo-Norman, apparently commissioned by the King, helping to
trace back the Plantagenet line to the Trojans. It is a pendant
to the Anglo-Norman Roman de Troie written by Benoît
de Sainte-More in the 1160s.
Joseph rejected the Vergilian 'medacious poetic' account of the
war in favour of the 'historical' narrative of Dares Phrygius,
an 'eye-witness' of the events. This version not only coincided
with the Platagenets' preference for historical material but also
presented Aeneas, the founder of the Romans, as a traitor. In
Henry's struggles with the Pope over the Investiture problem any
slur on the origins of the Romans could be useful ammunition.
Books IIII cover the first Trojan war when Laomedon was besieged,
the Judgement of Paris and the Rape of Helen.
In style Joseph closely resembles Lucan whom he had read "with
an eye that allowed little to escape" (Raby), yet his imitation
is far from servile. Sedgwick even goes so far as to say that
Joseph "surpasses the bold constructions of Silver Latin".
Moreover, Joseph restores to epic the gods that Lucan had banished.
The result is an epic that in the 17th century was still considered
to have been written in the classical period.
A.K. Bate (University Reading)
196pp. (1986) cl 294 2 £35 / $59.99, pb 295 0 £13.25 / $22 (pb out of stock)
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INTRODUCTION PARALLEL LATIN TEXT AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION COMMENTARY |
SOME COMMENTS
Although written c.1180, this epic was written in such
fine Latin that it was thought right up to the 17thC to have been
a composition of the classical age.