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Print Price: $126.50

Format:
Hardback
432 pp.
138 mm x 216 mm

ISBN-13:
9780192898111

Publication date:
September 2021

Imprint: OUP UK

The Art of Complicity in Martial and Statius

Martial's Epigrams, Statius' Silvae, and Domitianic Rome

Erik Gunderson

Series : Classics in Theory

The Art of Complicity in Martial and Statius examines the relationship between politics and aesthetics in two poets from the reign of Domitian. Gunderson offers a comprehensive overview of the Epigrams of Martial and the Siluae of Statius. The praise of power found in these texts is not something forced upon these poems, nor is it a mere appendage to these works. Instead, power and poetry as a pair are a fundamental dyad that can and should be traced throughout the two collections. It is present even when the emperor himself is not the topic of discussion.

In Martial the portrait of power is constantly shifting. Poetic play takes up the topic of political power and 'plays around with it'. The initial relatively sportive attitude darkens over time. Late in the game we have ecstasies of humiliation. After Domitian dies the project tries to get back to the old games, but it cannot. Statius' Siluae merge the lies one tells to power with the lies of poetry more generally. Poetic mastery and political mastery cannot be dissociated. The glib, glitzy poetry of contemporary life articulates a radical modernism that is self-authorizing, and so complicit with a power whose structure it mirrors.

What does it mean to praise praise poetry? To celebrate celebrations? Gunderson's discussion opens and closes with a meditation upon the dangers of complicit criticism and the seductions of a discourse of pure art in a world where the art is anything but pure.

Readership : Students and scholars.

1. Introduction
2. Martial's Epigrams as Domitianic Literature
3. Statian Metapoetics: The High Art of Complicity
4. Conclusion
Appendix: From Nero to Trajan: Lives and Times

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Erik Gunderson holds a PhD in Classics from the University of California, Berkeley. He formerly taught at the Department of Greek and Latin at Ohio State University, and has been at the University of Toronto since 2007. He is the author of six monographs, an edited volume, and a number of articles covering a variety of aspects of the literature and culture of the Roman era. His research focuses on the ancient self and its relationship to institutions, including games, theater, education, and the field of cultural production.

Making Sense - Margot Northey
The Ancient Unconscious - Vered Lev Kenaan
Narratology - Genevieve Liveley
Diotima at the Barricades - Paul Allen Miller

Special Features

A study of the interplay of politics and aesthetics in Latin poetry.
Informed by developments in literary criticism and political theory.
Makes the poetry accessible to readers without knowledge of Latin.