The Grotesque in Roman Love Elegy

A pioneering study of the aesthetic function of grotesque imagery in Roman love elegy.

Mariapia Pietropaolo (Author)

9781108488693, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 September 2020

248 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.5 kg

Roman elegy makes frequent use of themes of ugliness and disfigurement, juxtaposing them with images of ideal beauty and sentiment. In order to overcome the obstacles to his erotic relationship, the poet-lover repeatedly represents his rivals and opponents in such a way as to ridicule their appearance and to degrade their social standing. This book explores the theme of corporeal, intellectual, and social degradation from a perspective attentive to the aesthetic significance of the grotesque imagery with which such degradation is accomplished. Although there has been sophisticated discussion of the use of grotesque imagery in genres like comedy, invective, and satire, which are concerned in part with themes of transgression and excess, Mariapia Pietropaolo demonstrates that the grotesque plays a significant role in the self-definition of love elegy, the genre in which it is least expected.

Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
1. Premises and Expectations of the Elegiac Grotesque
2. Context and Prehistory of the Elegiac Grotesque
3. Cynthia and the Grotesque Ethos
4. The Ovidian Unmasking of the Elegiac Grotesque
5. Revolting and Refined: The Aesthetic Function of Acanthis
6. Grotesque Hermeneutics of the Lena in Tibullus and Ovid
7. The Rival: A Vir Foedus
8. Pasiphae and the Allurement of the Grotesque
9. Ovid's Remedia and the Waning of the Elegiac Grotesque
List of References

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literature: history & criticism [DS]