Title: Catullus and the Poetics of Roman Manhood
First published: January 29, 2007
Description: This book applies comparative cultural and literary models to a reading of Catullus' poems as social performances of a 'poetics of manhood': a competitively, often outrageously, self-allusive bid for recognition and admiration. Earlier readings of Catullus, based on Romantic and Modernist notions of 'lyric' poetry, have tended to focus on the relationship with Lesbia and to ignore the majority of the shorter poems, which are instead directed at other men. Professor Wray approaches these poems in the light of new models for understanding male social interaction in the premodern Mediterranean, placing them in their specifically Roman historical context while bringing out their strikingly 'postmodern' qualities. The result is a new way of reading the fiercely aggressive and delicately refined agonism performed in Catullus' shorter poems. All Latin and Greek quoted is supplied with an English translation.
Subjects: Classic Literature, Fiction, Epigrams, Intertextuality, Love poetry, history and criticism, Men in literature, Rome, in literature, Self in literature, Criticism and interpretation, Latin Elegiac poetry, History and criticism, Latin Love poetry, Latin Epigrams, Masculinity in literature, In literature, Critique et interprétation, Poésie d'amour latine, Histoire et critique, Épigrammes latines, Masculinité dans la littérature, Moi (Psychologie) dans la littérature, Hommes dans la littérature, Intertextualité, Rome dans la littérature, TRAVEL, Special Interest, Literary, LITERARY CRITICISM, General, Literature, Mannelijkheid, Gedichten, Crtique et interprétation