Unit name | Latin Language Level D2 |
---|---|
Unit code | CLAS32343 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Dr. Laura Jansen |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
CLAS22408 or equivalent |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of Classics & Ancient History |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
For the Romans, verse satire, especially in the works of Lucilius, Horace and Juvenal, was the quintessentially Roman genre, with no counterpart in Greek. Associated with personal attack and diatribes on the state of society, it also focuses on the self-styled outsider’s attempts to gain an entrée into Roman society. But satire is not the only genre that adopts aggression as its posture: the epigrams of Catullus and Martial also project themselves as examples of ‘Roman straight-talking’, whilst the Epodes of Horace self-consciously look back to the ‘iambic’ poetry of the Greek Archilochus. In this unit, we will read some central texts of this ‘poetry of aggression’ and explore what the Romans thought they were doing with it. How do the different genres characterize their aggression? Is this poetry a serious critique of society and its most prominent figures, or a source of lurid entertainment? Does its character change as Republic phases into Empire?
On successful completion of this unit successful students will be able to demonstrate:
3 hours of seminars per week
Both will assess ILOs 1-4.
Set Texts:
- Selections from Lucilius, Catullus, Martial and the letters of the Younger Pliny (to be circulated by Dr Jansen)
- Horace Epodes 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 (ed. David Mankin, Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, 1995)
- Horace Satires 1.1, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9 (ed. P.M.Brown, Aris & Phillips, 1993)
- Juvenal Satires 1, 2, 3 (ed. Susanna Morton Braund, Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, 1996)
Secondary bibliography:
- Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humour (New Haven and London, 1983)
- Kirk Freudenburg, The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire (Cambridge, 2005)
-Paul Allen Miller, Latin Verse Satire: An Anthology and Reader (London & New York, 2005)