The Politics Of Latin Literature

This is the first book to describe the intimate relationship between Latin literature and the politics of ancient Rome. Until now, most scholars have viewed classical Latin literature as a product of aesthetic concerns. Thomas Habinek shows, however, that literature was also a cultural practice that emerged from and intervened in the political and social struggles at the heart of the Roman world. Habinek considers major works by such authors as Cato, Cicero, Horace, Ovid, and Seneca. He shows that, from its beginnings in the late third century b.c. to its eclipse by Christian literature six hundred years later, classical literature served the evolving interests of Roman and, more particularly, aristocratic power. It fostered a prestige dialect, for example; it appropriated the cultural resources of dominated and colonized communities; and it helped to defuse potentially explosive challenges to prevailing values and authority. Literature also drew upon and enhanced other forms of social authority, such as patriarchy, religious ritual, cultural identity, and the aristocratic procedure of self-scrutiny, or existimatio. Habinek's analysis of the relationship between language and power in classical Rome breaks from the long Romantic tradition of viewing Roman authors as world-weary figures, aloof from mundane political concerns--a view, he shows, that usually reflects how scholars have seen themselves. The Politics of Latin Literature will stimulate new interest in the historical context of Latin literature and help to integrate classical studies into ongoing debates about the sociology of writing.

This collection of essays offers a comprehensive examination of the varied dynamics and strategies of political discourse and its concealment in Latin literature in the late republic and especially the early empire at Rome.

The poetic forms, on the other hand, used by Virgil were so much more on the main line of tendency that he stands among a large number of others, some of whom might have had a high reputation but for his overwhelming superiority. Of the other essays made in this period in bucolic poetry we know too little to speak with any confidence. But both didactic poetry and the little epic were largely cultivated, and the greater epic itself was not without followers. The extant poems of the Culex and Ciris have already been noted as showing with what skill and grace unknown poets, almost if not absolutely contemporary with Virgil, could use the slighter epic forms.

The Cambridge Critical Guide to Latin Literature offers a critical overview of work on Latin literature. Where are we? How did we get here? Where to next? Fifteen commissioned chapters, along with an extensive introduction and Mary Beard's postscript, approach these questions from a range of angles. They aim not to codify the field, but to give snapshots of the discipline from different perspectives, and to offer provocations for future development. The Critical Guide aims to stimulate reflection on how we engage with Latin literature. Texts, tools and territories are the three areas of focus. The Guide situates the study of classical Latin literature within its global context from late antiquity to Neo-Latin, moving away from an exclusive focus on the pre-200 CE corpus. It recalibrates links with adjoining disciplines (history, philosophy, material culture, linguistics, political thought, Greek), and takes a fresh look at key tools (editing, reception, intertextuality, theory).

Cicero has played a pivotal role in shaping Western culture. His public persona, his self-portrait as model of Roman prose, philosopher, and statesman, has exerted a durable and profound impact on the educational system and the formation of the ruling class over the centuries. Joining up with recent studies on the reception of Cicero, this volume approaches the figure of Cicero from a ‘biographical’, more than ‘philological’, perspective and considers the multiple ways by which different ages reacted to Cicero and created their ‘Ciceros’. From Cicero’s lifetime to our times, it focuses on how the image of Cicero was revisited and reworked by intellectuals and men of culture, who eulogized his outstanding oratorical and political virtues but, not rarely, questioned the role he had in Roman politics and society. An international group of scholars elaborates on the figure of Cicero, shedding fresh light on his reception in late antiquity, Humanism and Renaissance, Enlightenment and modern centuries. Historians, literary scholars and philosophers, as well as graduate students, will certainly profit from this volume, which contributes enormously to our understanding of the influence of Cicero on Western culture over the times.

This highly accessible, user-friendly work provides a fresh and illuminating introduction to the most important aspects of Latin prose and poetry and the fundamental connections between Latin literature and issues of elite Roman culture