The politics of desire : Propertius IV
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The politics of desire : Propertius IV
(The Joan Palevsky imprint in classical literature)
University of California Press, c2001
- : hbk
- : pbk
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Note
Height of pbk., ISBN:9780520223219: 23 cm
Bibliography: p. 215-235
Includes indexes
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: hbk ISBN 9780520223189
Description
Propertius (ca. 54 b.c.--ca. 2 b.c.) was a Roman poet who composed four compelling books of elegies in the chaotic years surrounding Rome's transition from republic to empire. The first three of these books revolve mostly around a tormented love affair with a woman called Cynthia. The fourth book of poetry rests on more diverse subject matter and is notoriously the most opaque and elusive. In The Politics of Desire, Micaela Janan radically reassesses Propertius' last elegies, using contemporary psychoanalytic theory to illuminate these challenging texts.
Janan finds that the upheaval of Rome's transformation to empire corresponds to the intellectually unsettled conditions of our own time, so that contemporary methodologies offer an uncannily suitable approach for understanding Propertius. In particular, she uses the work of Jacques Lacan, since it provides the best conceptual tools for examining the relation between political crisis and the struggles of the self, a theme that resonates in these difficult elegies.
This book expands our understanding of an important Roman poet, and its innovative and sophisticated methodological approach makes a substantial contribution to feminist and psychoanalytic criticism. In addition, Janan addresses elegy's relationship to larger cultural questions, and broadens our understanding of the social crisis affecting Rome during the early empire.
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780520223219
Description
Propertius (ca. 54 b.c.--ca. 2 b.c.) was a Roman poet who composed four compelling books of elegies in the chaotic years surrounding Rome's transition from republic to empire. The first three of these books revolve mostly around a tormented love affair with a woman called Cynthia. The fourth book of poetry rests on more diverse subject matter and is notoriously the most opaque and elusive. In The Politics of Desire, Micaela Janan radically reassesses Propertius' last elegies, using contemporary psychoanalytic theory to illuminate these challenging texts. Janan finds that the upheaval of Rome's transformation to empire corresponds to the intellectually unsettled conditions of our own time, so that contemporary methodologies offer an uncannily suitable approach for understanding Propertius. In particular, she uses the work of Jacques Lacan, since it provides the best conceptual tools for examining the relation between political crisis and the struggles of the self, a theme that resonates in these difficult elegies.
This book expands our understanding of an important Roman poet, and its innovative and sophisticated methodological approach makes a substantial contribution to feminist and psychoanalytic criticism. In addition, Janan addresses elegy's relationship to larger cultural questions, and broadens our understanding of the social crisis affecting Rome during the early empire.
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A NOTE ON CITATION
Introduction
1. Theoretical Preliminaries
2. "Shadow of a Doubt": Framing the Subject in the Gallus Poems
3* The Ethics of Evil: Arethusa to Lycotas (4.3)
4* "Beyond Good and Evil": Tarpeia and Philosophy in the Feminine (4.4)
5* The Return of the Dead: The Acanthis Elegy (4.5)
6. "The Book of Revelation": Cynthia's Truth (4.7)
7* Cynthia Returns from Lanuvium (4.8)
8. Hercules in Rome (4-9)
9* The Phenomenology of the Spirits (4.11)
10. Dreaming Rome
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GENERAL INDEX
INDEX OF PROPERTIAN POEMS CITED
by "Nielsen BookData"