Iambic Poetics in the Roman Empire

Traces the impact of invective poetics associated with early Greek iambic poetry on Roman imperial authors and audiences.

Tom Hawkins (Author)

9781107012080, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 April 2014

343 pages
25.3 x 17.8 x 2.5 cm, 0.79 kg

This is the first book to study the impact of invective poetics associated with early Greek iambic poetry on Roman imperial authors and audiences. It demonstrates how authors as varied as Ovid and Gregory Nazianzen wove recognizable elements of the iambic tradition (e.g. meter, motifs, or poetic biographies) into other literary forms (e.g. elegy, oratorical prose, anthologies of fables), and it shows that the humorous, scurrilous, efficacious aggression of Archilochus continued to facilitate negotiations of power and social relations long after Horace's Epodes. The eclectic approach encompasses Greek and Latin, prose and poetry, and exploratory interludes appended to each chapter help to open four centuries of later classical literature to wider debates about the function, propriety and value of the lowest and most debated poetic form from archaic Greece. Each chapter presents a unique variation on how these imperial authors became Archilochus – however briefly and to whatever end.

Introduction
1. Iambus delayed: Ovid's Ibis
Interlude 1. 'Bad artists imitate, great artists steal': Martial and the trope of not being iambic
2. Iambos denied: Babrius' Mythiambi
Interlude 2. Iambopoioi after Babrius
3. The Christian iambopoios: Gregory Nazianzen
Interlude 3. Palladas and epigrammatic iambos
4. Archilochus in Tarsus: Dio Chrysostom's First Tarsian
Interlude 4. Begging with Hipponax
5. Playful aggression: Lucian's Pseudologista
Interlude 5. Neobule in love: the Ps.-Lucianic Amores
6. Festive iambos: Julian's Misopogon
Interlude 6. Iambic time travel: Julian the Egyptian on Archilochus
Conclusions: becoming Archilochus.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Poetry [DC]