Writing, Performance, and Authority in Augustan Rome

by Lowrie, Michele

• ISBN13: 9780199545674
• ISBN10: 0199545677
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-12-20
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In Writing, Performance, and Authority in Augustan Rome Michele Lowrie examines how the Romans conceived of their poetic media. Song has links to the divine through prophecy, while writing offers a more quotisian, but also more realistic way of presenting what a poet does. In a culture of highly polished book production where recitation was the fashion, to claim to sing or to write was one means of self-definition. Lowrie assesses the stakes of poetic claims to one medium or another. Generic definition is an important factor. Epic and lyric have traditional associations with song, while the literacy epistle is obviously written. But issuess of poetic interpretability and power matter even more. The choice of medium contributes to the debate about the relative potency of rival discourses, specifically poetry, politics, and the law. Writing could offer an escape from the social and political demands of the moment by shifting the focus toward the readership of posterity.

Author Biography

Michele Lowrie is Associate Professor of Classics at New York University.

Table of Contents

Arma uirumque cano	p. 1
Some Background	p. 24
Writing, Performance, and Performativity
The Performance of Horatian Lyric: The Limits of Reference	p. 63
Horatian Lyric and Metaphorical Truths	p. 98
At The Limits of Performativity: The Carmen saeculare	p. 123
Monument And Festival in Vergil	p. 142
Elegy: Overcoming Inability	p. 175
Performance and the Augustan Literary Epistle
Love and Semiotics	p. 215
Beyond Performance Envy: Horace, Epistles 2. 1	p. 235
De- and Re-contextualization: Horace, Epistles 1. 19	p. 251
Ovid's Triumphs in Exile: Representation and Power	p. 259
Writing, Performance, and Politics
Auctoritas and Representation: Augustus's Res gestae	p. 279
Occasion and Monument: The Ara Pacis	p. 309
Reading and the Law
Literature and the Law: Horace, Sermones 2. 1	p. 327
Inscription and Testimony: Propertius 4. 11	p. 349
The Pragmatics of Literature: Ovid	p. 360
Abbreviations	p. 383
References	p. 388
Index Locorum	p. 411
Subject Index	p. 419
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