Transcript Slide 1

Juvenalian Satire
Rome through a Glass Darkly?
7/21/2015
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Agenda
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Recap and Update
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Juvenal 2, 6
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Context, Genre, Issues
“Priapic” Humor…
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Interpretation in Context — Two Texts (Sulpicia,
Catullus)
Pat, Sandra, Naomi, Amanda on Richlin on Juvenal
and Related
Further Reflections
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Does “Priapic” = “Roman”?
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Recap and Update
Interpretation in Context — Two
Texts (Sulpicia, Catullus)
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Two Texts (Sulpicia, Catullus)
What do we learn?
 Discuss in relation to (you pick)…
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“true love”
 sex/gender at Rome, its
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sociology
 ideology
 politics
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implications for F&N
 other??
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Group comment, critique…
SULPICIA 1
 love is beautiful
 loving relationships not unheard
of
 worthy love – reciprocity
 grateful to Aphr-Venus
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CATULLUS 51
 final verse – fem./passive
persona
 politically
 self-psyching up
 true love
contrary to tradition, rebellious
mouthpiece
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spiritual – not!
affected by Lesbia
challenge gender roles
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chasity not paramount
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passive role
idleness – lack of courtship
adulterous love
erotic abjectivity-feminity
last verse TAKE ACTION
masculinity-gender issues
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Instructor’s 2¢: Roman Bipolarity
Rome and the Monstrous
Barton, Carlin A. The Sorrows
of the Ancient Romans: The
Gladiator and the Monster.
Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1993
Woburn Marble
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Catullus Poem 85
“I hate and I love. Why I do this,
perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel
it happening and I am tortured.”
Catullan/Sulpician Bipolarity
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Sulpicia 1
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“But indiscretion has its charms; / it’s boring / to fit
one's face to / reputation. May I be said to be / a
worthy lover for a worthy love”
Sed peccasse iuvat, vultus componere famae |
taedet: cum digno digna fuisse ferar
Catullus 51 – Catullan “add-ons”
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fas (permissible) / nefas (forbidden)
otium (leisure) / negotium (business)
amor / Roma
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Juvenalian Bipolarity?
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Juvenalian traditionalism
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“Saturn’s reign” (Satire 6)
Juvenalian cynicism
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“I’d far rather marry a penniless tart than
you, Cornelia, Mother / of Statesmen, so
haughty a a prig for all you’re virtues, your
dowry / weighted down with triumphs”
(Satire 6)
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Juvenal 2, 6
Context, Genre, Issues
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Hadrian (r. 117–138)
Trajan (r. 98–117)
Domitian (r. 81–96)
(Nerva r. 96-98)
Sat. 2, 6: Genre, Structure, Theme
Satire 2
hypocritical moralists:
 philosophers
 cinaedic cinaedusbashers
 imperial reformer
 pathic lawyer
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lex iulia et papia
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Roman contagion
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Satire 6
misogyny gone wild…
 pudicitia’s loss
 matrimonial folly
 gallery of women
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impure maids
lust for infamia
imperial prostitute
imperious wives
adulterous wives
etc. etc.
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“Priapic” Humor…
Pat, Sandra, Naomi, Amanda on
Richlin on Juvenal and Related
7/21/2015
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Further Reflections
Does “Priapic” = “Roman”?
7/21/2015
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Juvenal: Students’ Comments
“Is it possible that the over-the-top-ness of
these selections is not representative of an
essentially Roman attitude, but rather a selfreferential characterization presenting the
attitude itself as the object of ridicule?”
“Have you ever listened to Eminem. Juvenal is
almost as good as Eminem?”
Can, in other words, the phallus fight itself and still “mean” something?
Comment…
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Themes, Quotes
SATIRE 2
 uitreo bibit ille Priapo, “a
second sips wine / from
a big glass phallus” (p. 78)
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os impurum
SATIRE 6
 mos maiorum (adultery as
SATIRE 6 (cont.)
 marriage
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tradition, (p. 127)
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Postumus
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rake
traditionalist
women
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infamia infatuation
their husbands
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career
love
metus hostilis theme
marriage
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affectio maritalis
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