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| Author(s): |
Danielle Chagas de Lima
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem |
| Defense date: | 2012-08-31 |
| Examining board members: |
Paulo Sérgio de Vasconcellos;
Breno Battistin Sebastiani;
Pedro Paulo Abreu Funari
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| Advisor: | Paulo Sérgio de Vasconcellos |
| Abstract | |
Both Suetonius' De Vita Caligulae and Tacitus' De Vita Iulii Agricolae are biographical works with very distinct composition and features, which may often reflect in modern approaches with respect to biography. The first title, of historical nature, draws much discussion about its genre and, on account of being written by a canonical historian, is commonly considered too much elaborated for a biography. On its turn, the second one, whose narrative axis has a private character, is usually understood as less laborious, especially due to the lack of historical information. Observing the frequent comparison between both titles (the detriment of Suetonius' biography as historiographical work is regularly verified), as well as the hesitation concerning the genre they belong to, this dissertation describes an investigation into possible generic differences between biography and history in ancient times, once such concepts, besides the appraisal of works and authors, seem to fluctuate through modern bibliography. Hence, the present research raised several definitions of biographic genre by contemporary authors, the reflections of ancient writers - like Cicero, Quintilian, Cornelius Nepus, Plutarch, Polybius, and Lucian of Samosata - on biographical and historiographical writing, and a short analysis of biographical genre's development, its relationships towards historiography and composition features. The aim of such questions is to observe whether biography can be taken as an autonomous genre - even though its border with historiography is not clearly defined. At last, the mentioned Tacitus' and Suetonius' titles are analyzed in order to investigate the construction of both works and how they may be enclosed in biography genre. The commented translation of De Vita Iulii Agricolae from Latin into Portuguese is presented after the study (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 09/12833-1 - The biographical writing in Roman historiography: a study of genre |
| Grantee: | Danielle Chagas de Lima |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Master |