Ut Pictura Natura : on the mimetic interactions between human beings and nature in the poetry of Virgil, Ovid, Seneca and Lucan

The aim of this study is to determine how the role of Nature as an active participant in the affairs of human beings (in the represented world) evolved over time in Roman literature from the Golden Age to the decadent Silver Age, with its two fathers: Seneca and Lucan. In order to illustrate Nature’s various reactions, the author investigates the devices that were used by Virgil, Ovid and their two Silver-Age successors (and creative emulators) to achieve mimesis and thus allow their audiences to experience these reactions to the fullest extent.