Declamation, Paternity, and Roman Identity
Declamation, Paternity, and Roman Identity
Declamation was a staple of education and cultured literary life in the Roman world over many centuries. This book offers a radical re-evaluation of the genre, its social importance, and its role in the history of the Western self. Ironically, this genre obsessed with "growing up" has been rejected by its own posterity. Erik Gunderson explores the social and psychic dynamics of this refusal within the ancient world as well as beyond. The book is of interest to specialists in classics, rhetoric, queer studies, and psychoanalytic literary criticism.
- Provides a history of a neglected aspect of rhetoric
- Re-evaluation of the logic of masculine identity at Rome
- A reading of ancient literature that has implications for contemporary theoretical concerns
Reviews & endorsements
"...this book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the genre of Roman declamation and its place in Roman thought. It is thorough, well conceived, and well executed..." Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews
"This book will be valuable as a corrective to the neglect of declamation as literature and a source for social history. There is humor, irony, and much perceptive scholarship. It is a notable addition to the body of scholarship on Roman declamation." Classic World, Lewis A. Sussman, University of Florida
Product details
May 2007Paperback
9780521036528
300 pages
228 × 150 × 18 mm
0.456kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Preface: Acheron
- Introduction: a praise of folly
- Part I. Where Ego Was …:
- 1. Recalling declamation
- 2. Fathers and sons
- bodies and places
- 3. Living declamation
- 4. Raving among the insane
- Part II. Let Id Be:
- 5. An Cimbrice loquendum sit: speaking and unspeaking the language of homosexual desire
- 6. Paterni nominis religio
- By way of conclusion
- Appendix 1: further reading
- Appendix 2: sample declamations
- List of references
- Index locorum
- General index.
