Petronius the Poet
Verse and Literary Tradition in the Satyricon

An investigation of the thirty short poems and two long ones which form part of Petronius' Satyricon.

Catherine M. Connors (Author)

9780521030892, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 January 2007

184 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.283 kg

"This is a useful study...students will profit from reading some modern translations of these poems.... Upper-division undergraduates; graduate students; researchers; faculty." Choice

The ancient novel, previously relegated to the margins of literary study, has recently taken its place at centre stage. Petronius' Satyricon, the oldest surviving work of prose fiction, is in many respects an arrestingly modern ancient novel but the inclusion within it of thirty short poems and two long ones introduces an alien feature in need of investigation. In this study, Catherine Connors draws on developments in Latin literary criticism to take a comprehensive approach to the Satyricon's poems, reminiscences of poetic texts, and the figure of the poet, assessing the ways in which they fragment and refashion established literary forms into a new amalgam of prose fiction. This book will be of interest to students of Latin literature, Neronian culture, and the early history of the novel. All Latin and Greek is translated.

Prefatory note
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction: verse and genre in Petronian criticism
1. Refashioning the epic past
2. In the frame: context and continuity in the short poems
3. Troy retaken: repetition and re-enactment in the Troiae Halosis
4. The Bellum Civile
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index of passages discussed
Index of subjects.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]