Variety
The Life of a Roman Concept
1st Edition
Published on 31. May 2024
254 pages
978-0-226-29952-5 (ISBN)
Description
The idea of variety may seem too diffuse, obvious, or nebulous to be worth scrutinizing, but modern usage masks the rich history of the term. This book examines the meaning, value, and practice of variety from the vantage point of Latin literature and its reception and reveals the enduring importance of the concept up to the present day.
William Fitzgerald looks at the definition and use of the Latin term varietasand how it has played out in different works and with different authors. He shows that, starting with the Romans, variety has played a key role in our thinking about nature, rhetoric, creativity, pleasure, aesthetics, and empire. From the lyric to elegy and satire, the concept of variety has helped to characterize and distinguish different genres. Arguing that the ancient Roman ideas and controversies about the value of variety have had a significant afterlife up to our own time, Fitzgerald reveals how modern understandings of diversity and choice derive from what is ultimately an ancient concept.
William Fitzgerald looks at the definition and use of the Latin term varietasand how it has played out in different works and with different authors. He shows that, starting with the Romans, variety has played a key role in our thinking about nature, rhetoric, creativity, pleasure, aesthetics, and empire. From the lyric to elegy and satire, the concept of variety has helped to characterize and distinguish different genres. Arguing that the ancient Roman ideas and controversies about the value of variety have had a significant afterlife up to our own time, Fitzgerald reveals how modern understandings of diversity and choice derive from what is ultimately an ancient concept.
All prices
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
William Fitzgerald
Variety - The Life of a Roman Concept
Book
03/2016
University of Chicago Press
€59.42
Article not available at the moment
Person
William Fitzgerald is professor of Latin language and literature at King's College London. He is the author of several books, including
Martial: The World of the Epigram, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Rescuing Variety
- 1. Words and Meanings
- 2. Variety's Contexts
- 3. Putting Variety at Issue: Varietas in Pliny the Younger, Lucretius, and Horace
- 4. Confronting Variety: Listing, Subjectivity, and Genre in Latin Poetry
- 5. Miscellany: Variety and the Book
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
