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This book explores Roman love elegy from postcolonial perspectives, arguing that the tropes, conventions, and discourses of the Augustan genre serve to reinforce the imperial identity of its elite, metropolitan audience. Love elegy presents the phenomena and discourses of Roman imperialism-in terms of visual spectacle (the military triumph), literary genre (epic in relation to elegy), material culture (art and luxury goods), and geographic space-as intersecting with ancient norms of gender and sexuality in a way that reinforces Rome's dominance in the Mediterranean. The introductory chapter lays out the postcolonial frame, drawing from the work of Edward Said among other theorists, and situates love elegy in relation to Roman Hellenism and the varied Roman responses to Greece and its cultural influences. Four of the six subsequent chapters focus on the rhetorical ambivalence that characterizes love elegy's treatment of Greek influence: the representation of the domina or mistress assimultaneously a figure for 'captive Greece' and a trope for Roman imperialism; the motif of the elegiac triumph, with varying figures playing the triumphator, as suggestive of Greco-Roman cultural rivalry; Rome's competing visions of an Attic and an Asiatic Hellenism. The second and the final chapter focus on the figures of Osiris and Isis, respectively, as emblematic of Rome's colonialist and ambivalent representation of Egypt, with the conclusion offering a deconstructive reading of elegy's rhetoric of orientalism.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
1.Reading Elegy Against the Grain.- 2.Osiris, Egypt, and Postcolonial Ambivalence in Tibullus 1.7.- 3.Elegiac Cartography and Roman Conceptions of Space.- 4.Imperial Luxury and the Elegiac Mistress.- 5.The Elegiac Triumph: Imperial Pomp and Erotic Circumstance.- 6.Augustan Visions of Hellenism and Roman Imperial Identity.- 7.Isis-Io, Egypt, and Cultural Circulation.-Afterword: The Meroë Head of Augustus
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Phebe Lowell Bowditch is Professor of Classics at the University of Oregon, USA. She is the author of Horace and the Gift Economy of Patronage (2001), A Propertius Reader. Eleven Selected Elegies (2014), and articles on Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, Horace, and issues of translation.
Zusammenfassung
This book explores Roman love elegy from postcolonial perspectives, arguing that the tropes, conventions, and discourses of the Augustan genre serve to reinforce the imperial identity of its elite, metropolitan audience. Love elegy presents the phenomena and discourses of Roman imperialism—in terms of visual spectacle (the military triumph), literary genre (epic in relation to elegy), material culture (art and luxury goods), and geographic space—as intersecting with ancient norms of gender and sexuality in a way that reinforces Rome’s dominance in the Mediterranean. The introductory chapter lays out the postcolonial frame, drawing from the work of Edward Said among other theorists, and situates love elegy in relation to Roman Hellenism and the varied Roman responses to Greece and its cultural influences. Four of the six subsequent chapters focus on the rhetorical ambivalence that characterizes love elegy’s treatment of Greek influence: the representation of the domina or mistress assimultaneously a figure for ‘captive Greece’ and a trope for Roman imperialism; the motif of the elegiac triumph, with varying figures playing the triumphator, as suggestive of Greco-Roman cultural rivalry; Rome’s competing visions of an Attic and an Asiatic Hellenism. The second and the final chapter focus on the figures of Osiris and Isis, respectively, as emblematic of Rome’s colonialist and ambivalent representation of Egypt, with the conclusion offering a deconstructive reading of elegy’s rhetoric of orientalism.
Zusatztext
“Bowditch is to be congratulated for writing such a nuanced, critical, and timely contribution to classical and literary studies. … I recommend this book to anyone looking for an example of how to use postcolonial theory in the study of ancient literatures, and especially to those who work on ancient erotic or romantic literature … . Though best suited to scholars and experts, this book would also be a good resource for graduate students … .” (R. Gillian Glass, Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR), bmcr.brynmawr.edu, December 25, 2024)
Bericht
Bowditch is to be congratulated for writing such a nuanced, critical, and timely contribution to classical and literary studies. I recommend this book to anyone looking for an example of how to use postcolonial theory in the study of ancient literatures, and especially to those who work on ancient erotic or romantic literature . Though best suited to scholars and experts, this book would also be a good resource for graduate students . (R. Gillian Glass, Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR), bmcr.brynmawr.edu, December 25, 2024)
