Catullus and Roman Comedy
Theatricality and Personal Drama in the Late Republic
Published on 13. January 2021
230 pages
978-1-108-88110-4 (ISBN)
Description
In the past century, scholars have observed a veritable full cast of characters from Roman comedy in the poetry of Catullus. Despite this growing recognition of comedy's allusive presence in Catullus' work, there has never been an extended analysis of how he engaged with this foundational Roman genre. This book sketches a more coherent picture of Catullus' use of Roman comedy and shows that individual points of contact with the theatre in his corpus are part of a larger, more sustained poetic program than has been recognized. Roman comedy, it argues, offered Catullus a common cultural vocabulary, drawn from the public stage and shared with his audience, with which to explore and convey private ideas about love, friendship, and social rivalry. It also demonstrates that Roman comedy continued to present writers after the second century BCE with a meaningful source of social, cultural, and artistic value.
Reviews / Votes
'Recommended.' R. Withers, Choice Magazine '[A] suggestive and insightful book.' Daniel Kiss, Exemplaria ClassicaMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
File size
7,52 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-108-88110-4 (9781108881104)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
03/2022
Cambridge University Press
€42.50
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Book
01/2021
Cambridge University Press
€105.50
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Person
Content
Introduction; 1. Through the Comic Looking-Glass; 2. The Best Medicine: Comic Cures for Love in the 1st Century BCE; 3. Heroic Badness and Catullus' Plautine Plots; 4. Naughty Girls: Comic Figures and Gendered Control in Catullus; Epilogue. The Show Goes On: From Roman Comedy to Latin Love Elegy; Bibliography.
