A critical study of Persius' poetic aims, aversions and techniques, based mainly on an extended analysis of Satires I. John Bramble shows how Persius' discontent with conventional literary language led him to compress the existing satiric idiom and create a powerful individual style. The author situates Persius' work in the tradition of Roman satire, and shows how he takes the concepts and metaphors of literary criticism back to their physical origins, to indict moral and literary decadence through a series of images connected with, for example, gluttony and sexual excess. This is a model study of a classical text, which makes consistent sense of a difficult and subtle manner, and answers questions posed by the potentially constricting nature of Roman poetic form. It also reconstructs the referential framework of ideas and associations upon which a sophisticated writer addressing a discriminating audience could draw.

The fifteen essays collected here argue that Roman verse satire should be viewed primarily as an art form, rather than as a social document or a direct expression of social protest. Originally published between 1956 and 1974, they constitute an impressive attempt to free Roman satire from misinterpretations that arose during the romantic era and that continue to plague scholars in the field. The author rejects the proposition that Juvenal and other satirists expressed spontaneous, unadorned anger and that the critic’s best approach is the study of the historical, social, economic and personal circumstances that led to their statement of that anger. This work develops his thesis that Roman satire was designed as a literary form and that the proper stance of the critic is to elucidate its art. Focusing on the dramatic character of the first-person speaker in the satires of Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, the author shows both how the speaker’s role was shaped to suit the purposes of the individual poems and how that role changed over successive collections of satires. Several essays also discuss the ways in which the satirists employed metaphors and similes and used contemporary ethical and rhetorical themes. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In these roles the satirist conducts penetrating analyses of Rome's definitive social practices "from the inside." Satire's reputation as the quintessential Roman genre is thus even more justified than previously recognized."--BOOK JACKET.

Quintilian famously claimed that satire was tota nostra, or totally ours, but this innovative volume demonstrates that many of Roman satire's most distinctive characteristics derived from ancient Greek Old Comedy. Jennifer L. Ferriss-Hill analyzes the writings of Lucilius, Horace, and Persius, highlighting the features that they crafted on the model of Aristophanes and his fellow poets: the authoritative yet compromised author; the self-referential discussions of poetics that vacillate between defensive and aggressive; the deployment of personal invective in the service of literary polemics; and the abiding interest in criticizing individuals, types, and language itself. The first book-length study in English on the relationship between Roman satire and Old Comedy, Roman Satire and the Old Comic Tradition will appeal to students and researchers in classics, comparative literature, and English.

A wide variety of texts by the Latin satirists are presented here in a fully loaded resource to provide an innovative reading of satire's relation to Roman ideology. Brimming with notes, commentaries, essays and texts in translation, this book succeeds in its mission to help the student understand the history of Latin's modern scholarly reception. Focusing on the linguistic difficulties and problems of usage, and examining aspects of meter and style necessary for poetry appreciation, the commentary places each selection in its own historical context then using essays and critical excerpt, the genre's most salient features are elucidated to provide a further understanding of its place in history. Extremely student friendly, this stands well both as a companion to Latin Erotic Elegy and in its own right as an invaluable fund of knowledge for any Latin literature scholar.

This compact and critically up-to-date introduction to Roman satire examines the development of the genre, focusing particularly on the literary and social functionality of satire. It considers why it was important to the Romans and why it still matters. Provides a compact and critically up-to-date introduction to Roman satire. Focuses on the development and function of satire in literary and social contexts. Takes account of recent critical approaches. Keeps the uninitiated reader in mind, presuming no prior knowledge of the subject. Introduces each satirist in his own historical time and place – including the masters of Roman satire, Lucilius, Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. Facilitates comparative and intertextual discussion of different satirists.

In this first comprehensive reading of Juvenal’s satires in more than fifty years, David H. J. Larmour deftly revises and sharpens our understanding of the second-century Roman writer who stands as the archetype for all later practitioners of the satirist’s art. The enduring attraction of Juvenal’s satires is twofold: they not only introduce the character of the “angry satirist” but also offer vivid descriptions of everyday life in Rome at the height of the Empire. In Larmour’s interpretation, these two elements are inextricably linked. The Arena of Satire presents the satirist as flaneur traversing the streets of Rome in search of its authentic core—those distinctly Roman virtues that have disappeared amid the corruption of the age. What the vengeful, punishing satirist does to his victims, as Larmour shows, echoes what the Roman state did to outcasts and criminals in the arena of the Colosseum. The fact that the arena was the most prominent building in the city and is mentioned frequently by Juvenal makes it an ideal lens through which to examine the spectacular and punishing characteristics of Roman satire. And the fact that Juvenal undertakes his search for the uncorrupted, authentic Rome within the very buildings and landmarks that make up the actual, corrupt Rome of his day gives his sixteen satires their uniquely paradoxical and contradictory nature. Larmour’s exploration of “the arena of satire” guides us through Juvenal’s search for the true Rome, winding from one poem to the next. He combines close readings of passages from individual satires with discussions of Juvenal’s representation of Roman space and topography, the nature of the “arena” experience, and the network of connections among the satirist, the gladiator, and the editor—or producer—of Colosseum entertainments. The Arena of Satire also offers a new definition of “Juvenalian satire” as a particular form arising from the intersection of the body and the urban landscape—a form whose defining features survive in the works of several later satirists, from Jonathan Swift and Evelyn Waugh to contemporary writers such as Russian novelist Victor Pelevin and Irish dramatist Martin McDonagh.

Maria Plaza offers a fresh and comprehensive analysis of humour in the writings of Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, with an excursus to Lucilius.