The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire

Satire as a distinct genre of writing was first developed by the Romans in the second century BCE. Regarded by them as uniquely ‘their own’, satire held a special place in the Roman imagination as the one genre that could address the problems of city life from the perspective of a ‘real Roman’. In this Cambridge Companion an international team of scholars provides a stimulating introduction to Roman satire’s core practitioners and practices, placing them within the contexts of Greco-Roman literary and political history. Besides addressing basic questions of authors, content, and form, the volume looks to the question of what satire ‘does’ within the world of Greco-Roman social exchanges, and goes on to treat the genre’s further development, reception, and translation in Elizabethan England and beyond. Included are studies of the prosimetric, ‘Menippean’ satires that would become the models of Rabelais, Erasmus, More, and (narrative satire’s crowning jewel) Swift.

• Offers the most comprehensive coverage of any single volume on Roman satire, including its receptions in more recent centuries • Provides both the novice reader and the expert with the latest scholarship as well as numerous critical insights • Provides guides to further reading and to key dates in the genre’s development

Introduction: posing for the companion: Roman satire Kirk Freudenburg; Part I. Satire as Literature: 1. Rome’s first ‘satirists’: themes and genre in Ennius and Lucilius Frances Muecke; 2. The restless companion: Horace, Satires 1 and 2 Emily Gowers; 3. Speaking from silence: the Stoic paradoxes of Persius Andrea Cucchiarelli; 4. The poor man’s feast: Juvenal Victoria Rimell; 5. Citation and authority in Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis Ellen O’Gorman; 6. Late arrivals: Julian and Boethius Joel Relihan; 7. From turnips to turbot: epic allusion in Roman satire Catherine Connors; 8. Sleeping with the enemy: satire and philosophy Roland Mayer; 9. The satiric maze: Petronius, satire and the novel Victoria Rimell; Part II. Satire as Social Discourse: 10. Satire as aristocratic play Thomas Habinek; 11. Satire in a ritual context Fritz Graf; 12. Satire and the poet: the body as self-referential symbol Alessandro Barchiesi and Andrea Cucchiarelli; 13. The libidinal rhetoric of satire Erik Gunderson; 14. Roman satire in the sixteenth century Colin Burrow; 15. Alluding to satire: Rochester, Dryden, and others Dan Hooley; 16. The Horatian and the Juvenalesque in English letters Charles Martindale; 17. The ‘presence’ of Roman satire: modern receptions and their interpretative implications Duncan Kennedy; Conclusion: The turnaround: a volume retrospect on Roman satires John Henderson.

\'Satire, perhaps more than any other genre, needs these companions, as it is a long, winding, branching road that sometimes blurs into obscurity. … the writings pull no punches, are often in the vernacular, and are direct in speech like satire itself. … this volume proves to be a worthy companion. Each author hands the traveller on to the next author, never isolating the reader but always providing connections by which to find a way back and to make the current scenery familiar.\'

– Bryn Mawr Classical Review

\'When travelling a long and varied road from its murky beginnings to its uncertain end one hopes for knowledgeable and interesting companions to lead one through the mud, side roads, and indiscernible paths. The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire provides such companions … [the book\'s] scope is huge. Many of the writings are general and basic enough for the novice adventurer while others … are specific and innovative enough for the specialist or seasoned traveller. In general, the writings pull no punches, are often in the vernacular, and are direct in speech like Satire itself … The restless companion: Horace: Satires 1 and 2 by Emily Gowers … masterfully provides a basic framework within which to understand better Horace and his writings … Cucchiarelli has taken a very dense, confusing author [Persius] and explained lucidly the reasons for his difficulty … Citation and authority in Seneca\'s Apocolocyntosis by Ellen O\'Gorman. This is one of the most titillating chapters in the corpus … Late arrivals: Julian and Boethius … This essay is very well written by the leading authority in this area and assumes … that most of us have not read … these texts and certainly never fully appreciated the satiric elements in them … this volume proves to be a worthy companion. Each author hands the traveller on to the next author, never isolating the reader but always providing connections by which to find a way back and to make the current scenery familiar.\'

– Martha Habash, Creighton University