Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction
Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction
Metaphors of the body form an important feature of Petronius' Satyricon. This book claims that the text can be read as a unified whole rather than as episodic jumble, despite its fragmentation. Presented as disturbing as well as comic, intricately structured as well as chaotic, the study asserts that the Satyricon's imagery constantly mirrors apparent paradoxes. Thus corporeality is explored as a metaphor rather than just as an index of the "low" genre of the novel.
- Makes an important contribution to feminist criticism through its exploration of metaphors of the body
- Revises twentieth-century criticisms of Petronius, including seminal ideas of critics like Auerbach and Bakhtin
- This book on Petronius sees this fragmentary work as unified on the level of imagery
Reviews & endorsements
'… succeeds in drawing from a wide range of both primary source material and recent secondary scholarship in its fashioning of an innovative critical interpretation of the Petronian text … Rimell is in full command of both her subject matter and her thesis.' Journal of the Classical Association of Canada
Product details
December 2007Paperback
9780521037013
252 pages
229 × 153 × 15 mm
0.387kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: corporealities
- 1. Rhetorical red herrings
- 2. Behind the scenes
- 3. The beast within
- 4. From the horse's mouth
- 5. Bella intestina
- 6. Regurgitating Polyphemus
- 7. Scars of knowledge
- 8. How to eat Virgil
- 9. Ghost stories
- 10. Decomposing rhythms
- 11. Conclusion: licence and labyrinths
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index of passages discussed
- Index of subjects.
