| Summary: | This thesis examines the concept of the sublime as represented by three Latin authors of the Neronian period: Lucan, Seneca and Petronius. Through analysis of these texts I explore, first, the relationship between Pseudo-Longinus’ <i>Peri Hupsous</i> and post-Classical theorisations of the sublime; and, second, the complex relationship between the sublime and politico-ethical discourses of freedom and oppression. In doing so, I argue in particular for Lucan’s epic <i>Bellum Civile</i> as a vital and hitherto overlooked text of the sublime and, more broadly, for the Neronian period as an important phase in the concept’s artistic history.
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