Intertextuality in Pliny's Epistles

Focusing on intertextuality, this book investigates Pliny the Younger's engagement with other authors and genres in his Epistles.

Margot Neger (Edited by), Spyridon Tzounakas (Edited by)

9781009294768, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 September 2023

348 pages
28 x 19 x 2.5 cm, 0.726 kg

Pliny's Epistles are full of literary artistry. This volume of essays by an impressive international team of scholars showcases this by exploring the intertextual, interdiscursive and also intermedial character of the collection. It provides a contribution to the recent scholarly interest in Latin prose intertextuality and in the literary and cultural interactions of the Imperial period. Focusing on the whole collection as well as on single books and selected letters, it investigates Pliny's strategies of incorporating literary models and genres into his epistolary oeuvre, thus creating a kind of 'super-genre' himself. In addition to displaying Pliny's literary techniques, the volume also serves as an advanced introduction to Latin prose poetics.

Introduction Margot Neger and Spyridon Tzounakas
Part I. Intertextuality and Interdiscursivity in Pliny's Letters: 1. Pliny, Man of Many Parts (Lucretius, Cicero, Valerius Maximus, Tacitus) Christopher Whitton
2. Intertextuality in Pliny Epistles 6 Roy Gibson
3. Discourses of Authority in Pliny, Epistles 10 Alice König
Part II. Models and Anti-Models: Pliny's Interaction with Oratory and Natural History
4. Oratorical Speeches and the Political Elite in the Regulus Cycle Matthew Mordue
5. Again on Corinthian Bronzes and Vases and on the Use of Cicero's Verrine Orations in Pliny's Works Stefano Rocchi
6. The Elder Pliny as source of inspiration: Pliny the Younger's reception of the Naturalis Historia and his uncle's writing by the light of a lamp (lucubratio) Judith Hindermann
Part III. Pliny and Seneca: Discourses of Grief and Posthumous Reputation
7. Pliny's Seneca and the Intertextuality of Grief Michael Hanaghan
8. Intertextuality and Posthumous Reputation in Pliny's Letter on the Death of Silius Italicus (Plin. Ep. 3.7) Spyridon Tzounakas
Part IV. Pliny's Villas and their Poetic Models: 9. The Villa and the Monument: Horace in Plin. Ep. 1.3 Alberto Canobbio
10. The Villas of Pliny and Statius Christopher Chinn
Part V. Pliny Turns Nasty: Satire and the Scoptic Tradition
11. A Busy Day in Rome: Pliny Ep. 1.9 Satirized by Horace Sat. 1.9 Ábel Tamás
12. Putting Pallas out of Context: Pliny on the Roman Senate voting Honours to a Freedman (Ep. 7.29 and 8.6) Jakub Pigo?
13. Risus et indignatio: Scoptic Elements in Pliny's Letters Margot Neger
Part VI. Final Thoughts: Discourses of Representation and Reproduction
14. Pliny's Calpurnia: Filiation, Imitation, Allusion Ilaria Marchesi.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]