The Tyrant with His Back to the Wall
The Tyrant with His Back to the Wall

Nero’s Artistic Self-Expansion

Author(s): Ulrich Gotter
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Social Sciences, Literary Texts
Published by: Central European University Press
Keywords: Nero;poetry;
Summary/Abstract: Why Nero, actually? Truly, he has already had an unprecedented reception as a prototypical tyrant of the ancient world. Today if one were asked to name any three villains of antiquity, Nero would most certainly be one of them. Under such conditions, it is also consistent to include him as the only “classical” example among the poet-despots of modern times, as a sort of paradigmatic opener. On second look, however, his privileged association with the grand poet-criminals of the twentieth century is more of a cliché, with only a narrow foundation in reality.

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