Further Details

Title: Lucian, Volume VII
Condition: New
Subtitle: Dialogues of the Dead. Dialogues of the Sea-Gods. Dialogues of the Gods. Dialogues of the Courtesans
Author: Lucian
Translator: M. D. Macleod
Contributor: M. D. Macleod (Translated by)
Format: Hardback
ISBN-10: 0674994752
EAN: 9780674994751
ISBN: 9780674994751
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Genre: Literary Criticism
Release Date: 01/01/1961
Description:

Antiquity’s satirist supreme.

Lucian (ca. AD 120–190), the satirist from Samosata on the Euphrates, started as an apprentice sculptor, turned to rhetoric and visited Italy and Gaul as a successful traveling lecturer before settling in Athens and developing his original brand of satire. Late in life he fell on hard times and accepted an official post in Egypt.

Although notable for the Attic purity and elegance of his Greek and his literary versatility, Lucian is chiefly famed for the lively, cynical wit of the humorous dialogues in which he satirizes human folly, superstition, and hypocrisy. His aim was to amuse rather than to instruct. Among his best works are A True Story (the tallest of tall tales about a voyage to the moon), Dialogues of the Gods (a “reductio ad absurdum” of traditional mythology), Dialogues of the Dead (on the vanity of human wishes), Philosophies for Sale (great philosophers of the past are auctioned off as slaves), The Fisherman (the degeneracy of modern philosophers), The Carousal or Symposium (philosophers misbehave at a party), Timon (the problems of being rich), Twice Accused (Lucian’s defense of his literary career) and (if by Lucian) The Ass (the amusing adventures of a man who is turned into an ass).

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Lucian is in eight volumes.

Missing Information?

Please contact us if any details are missing and where possible we will add the information to our listing.