Transformation of Decline and Fall: 0 - Brossura

Womersley, David

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0521070961 ISBN 13: 9780521070966

Casa editrice: Cambridge University Press, 2008

Riassunto

David Womersley's book investigates Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as both a work of literature and a work of history, examining its style and irony, tracing its classical and French sources, and highlighting the importance of its composition in three instalments over a period of twenty years. Dr Womersley discusses each of these instalments in detail, plotting the work's transformation from conception to completion, and relating this to the achievements and limitations of the philosophic historiography which Gibbon inherited from Montesquieu and Hume, but finally discarded. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire emerges from this study as a work more flexible in its sympathies and surprising in its judgements than has hitherto been granted, while the magnitude of Gibbon's achievement as a stylist, historian and thinker is brought into sharper focus.

Su questo libro

Descrizione del libro:

David Womersley's book investigates Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as both a work of literature and a work of history, examining its style and irony, tracing its classical and French sources, and highlighting the importance of its composition in three instalments over a period of twenty years.

Contenuti:

Part 1. The historiographic milieu: 1. Montesquieu's Considerations; 2. Hume; Part II. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: 3. Introduction; Volume I - 1776: 4. Style; 5. Augustus; 6. Tacitus; 7. Narrative; 8. Chapters XV and XVI; Volumes II and III - 1781; 9. 'The more rational ignorance of the man'; 10. Julian the Apostate; 11. Ammianus Marcellinus; 12. 'The nice and secret springs of action'; Volumes IV, V and VI - 1788; 13. 'A dead uniformity of abject vices'; 14. Structure; 15. 'Not a system, but a series'; 16. 'A keener glance' 17. Realising the past; 18. 'The wide and various prospect of desolation'.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Cambridge University Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0521070961
• ISBN 13: 9780521070966
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 332