Martial's Rome : empire and the ideology of epigram

Bibliographic Information

Martial's Rome : empire and the ideology of epigram

Victoria Rimell

Cambridge University Press, 2008

  • : hbk

Available at  / 5 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Includes bibliographical refersnces (p. 211-223) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This provocative book is a major contribution to our understanding of Martial's poetics, his vision of the relationship between art and reality, and his role in formulating modern perceptions of Rome. The study shows how on every scale from the microscopic to the cosmic, Martial displays epigram's ambition to enact the sociality of urban life, but also to make Rome rise out of epigram's architecture and gestures. Martial's distinctive aesthetic, grounded in paradox and inconsistency, ensures that the humblest, most throwaway poetic form is best poised to capture first century empire in all its dazzling complexity. As well as investigating many of Martial's central themes - monumentality, economics, death, carnival, exile - this books also questions what kind of a mascot Martial is for classics today in our own advanced, multicultural world, and will be an invaluable guide for scholars and students of classical literature and Roman history.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction: getting to know Martial
  • 1. Copyright and contagion: the city as text
  • 2. Vigor Mortis: living and dying
  • 3. Poetic economies: figuring out Martial's maths
  • 4. Mundus inversus: Martial's Saturnalia
  • 5. The space of epigram
  • Epilogue.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

Page Top