Petronius the Poet
This book investigates the thirty short poems and two long ones that form part of Petronius' Satyricon, the oldest surviving work of prose fiction in the Western tradition. Unlike general studies of Petronius that do not consider the verse in much detail, and a recent commentary on the short poems that treats them in isolation, this book presents detailed close readings of these poems in their fictional and literary historical contexts. All Latin and Greek is translated.
- A study of the poems in the Satyricon which examines them in depth and in their fictional and literary historical contexts
- Petronius' Satyricon is well known by name (cf. Fellini's Satyricon) but the work itself is not well understood
- The ancient novel is becoming a fashionable object of study
Reviews & endorsements
"This is a useful study...students will profit from reading some modern translations of these poems.... Upper-division undergraduates; graduate students; researchers; faculty." Choice
Product details
January 2007Paperback
9780521030892
184 pages
228 × 152 × 12 mm
0.283kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Prefatory note
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: verse and genre in Petronian criticism
- 1. Refashioning the epic past
- 2. In the frame: context and continuity in the short poems
- 3. Troy retaken: repetition and re-enactment in the Troiae Halosis
- 4. The Bellum Civile
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index of passages discussed
- Index of subjects.