In a time of aggressive imperial expansion, Latin elegists expressed geographical concerns about boundaries and limits through masculine and feminine subjects in their poetry. Latin Elegy and the Space of Empire argues that the subject in Latin elegy, beginning with Catallus, constitutes itself in relation to the dynamic space of empire from the late Republic to the end of the Augustan age. The lack of fixiity in the elegiac subject and space of empire go hand in hand, and in imagining geographical space the question of our very nature as subjects comes to the fore. Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid each offers his own unique expression of the gendered subject, and their poetry runs the gamut of responses to the expanding geographical empire. First comes the dream of Roman imperium sine fine, an empire that capaciously stretches to the ends of the inhabited world. And yet, imperium sine fine requires the existence of some sort of fines, even if the fantasy demands that they be overrun. Formlessness, or worse, rapidly alternating forms, gives rise to anxieties and the desire to set down some fines, to establish where, exactly, the boundaries of empire are, what belongs "inside" and what can be relegated to "outside". But fines, cartographically speaking, are never as stable as we want them to be, and, for a rapidly expanding empire, are always under pressure. The very constitution of the gendered elegiac subject mirrors, anticipates, runs parallel to the problems and anxieties that the map of expanding empire both tries to solve, yet simultaneously reveals in its production of space.

This volume considers representations of space and movement in sources ranging from Roman comedy to late antique verse, exploring how poetry in the Roman world is fundamentally shaped by its relationship to travel within the geography of Rome’s far-reaching empire. The volume surveys Roman poetics of travel and geography in sources ranging from Plautus to Augustan poetry, from the Flavians to Ausonius. The chapters offer a range of approaches to: the complex relationship between Latin poetry, Roman identity, imperialism, and travel and geospatial narratives; and the diachronic and generic evolutions of poetic descriptions of space and mobility. In addition, two chapters, including the concluding one, contextualize and respond to the volume’s discussion of poetry by looking at ways in which Romans not only write and read poems about travel and geography, but also make writing and reading part of the experience of traveling, as demonstrated in their epigraphic practices. The collection as a whole offers important insights into Roman poetics and into ancient notions of movement and geographical space. Travel, Geography, and Empire in Latin Poetry will be of interest to specialists in Latin poetry, ancient travel, and Latin epigraphy as well as to those studying travel writing, geography, imperialism, and mobility in other periods. The chapters are written to be accessible to researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates.

Provides the necessary context to read elegiac and lyric poetry, designed for novice and experienced Classics and Latin students alike A Guide to Latin Elegy and Lyric explores the language of Latin poetry while helping readers understand the socio-cultural context of the remarkable period of Roman literary history in which the poetry was composed. With an innovative approach to this important area of classical scholarship, the authors treat elegy alongside lyric as they cover topics such as the Hellenistic influences on Augustan poetry, the key figures that shaped the elegiac tradition of Rome, the motifs of militia amoris ("the warfare of love") and servitium amoris (“the slavery of love”) in Latin love elegy, and more. Organized into ten chapters, the book begins with an introduction to the literary, political, and social contexts of the Augustan Age. The next six chapters each focus on an individual lyric and elegiac poet—Catullus, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, and Sulpicia—followed by a survey of several lesser-known poets and post-Augustan elegy and lyric. The text concludes with a discussion of major tropes and themes in Latin elegy and lyric, and an overview and analysis of key critical approaches in current scholarship. This volume: Includes full translations alongside the Latin throughout the text to illustrate discussions Analyzes recurring themes and tropes found in Latin poetry such as sexuality and gender, politics and patronage, myth and religion, wealth and poverty, empire, madness, magic, and witchcraft Reviews modern critical approaches to elegiac and lyric poetry including autobiographical realism, psychoanalysis, narratology, reception, and decolonization Includes helpful introductory sections: "How to Read a Latin Elegiac or Lyric Poem" and "How to Teach a Latin Elegiac and Lyric Poem" Provides information about each poet, an in-depth discussion of some of their poetry, and cultural and historical background Features a dedicated chapter on Sulpicia, offering readers an ancient female viewpoint on sex and gender, politics, and patronage Part of the acclaimed Blackwell Guides to Classical Literature series, A Guide to Latin Elegy and Lyric is the perfect text for both introductory and advanced courses in Latin elegy and lyric, accessible for students reading the poetry in translation, as well as for those experienced in Latin with an interest in learning a different approach to the subject.

This book explores Roman love elegy from postcolonial perspectives, arguing that the tropes, conventions, and discourses of the Augustan genre serve to reinforce the imperial identity of its elite, metropolitan audience. Love elegy presents the phenomena and discourses of Roman imperialism—in terms of visual spectacle (the military triumph), literary genre (epic in relation to elegy), material culture (art and luxury goods), and geographic space—as intersecting with ancient norms of gender and sexuality in a way that reinforces Rome’s dominance in the Mediterranean. The introductory chapter lays out the postcolonial frame, drawing from the work of Edward Said among other theorists, and situates love elegy in relation to Roman Hellenism and the varied Roman responses to Greece and its cultural influences. Four of the six subsequent chapters focus on the rhetorical ambivalence that characterizes love elegy’s treatment of Greek influence: the representation of the domina or mistress as simultaneously a figure for ‘captive Greece’ and a trope for Roman imperialism; the motif of the elegiac triumph, with varying figures playing the triumphator, as suggestive of Greco-Roman cultural rivalry; Rome’s competing visions of an Attic and an Asiatic Hellenism. The second and the final chapter focus on the figures of Osiris and Isis, respectively, as emblematic of Rome’s colonialist and ambivalent representation of Egypt, with the conclusion offering a deconstructive reading of elegy’s rhetoric of orientalism.

This indispensable volume provides a complete course on Latin erotic elegy, allowing students to trace a coherent narrative of the genre's rise and fall, and to understand its relationship to the changes that marked the collapse of the Roman republic, and the founding of the empire. The book begins with a detailed and wide-ranging introduction, looking at major figures, the evolution of the form, and the Roman context, with particular focus on the changing relations between the sexes. The texts that follow range from the earliest manifestations of erotic elegy, in Catullus, through Tibullus, Sulpicia (Rome's only female elegist), Propertius and Ovid. An accessible commentary explores the historical background, issues of language and style, and the relation of each piece to its author's larger body of work. The volume closes with an anthology of critical essays representative of the main trends in scholarship; these both illuminate the genre's most salient features and help the student understand its modern reception.

Latin love elegy’s flourishing concurrent with Rome’s transition from Republic to Principate has remained an issue central to scholarship on the genre since the turn of the last millennium. This book addresses the Greco-Roman literary inheritance and Augustan socio-political context that paved the way for that flourishing, while examining the genre’s key elements and characters as illustrated in the poetry of Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, and Sulpicia. Special attention is paid to the gendered dynamics that govern the relationship between “poet-lover” (amator) and beloved and to the role of the poet as artist and creator of a “written girl” (scripta puella).

This volume brings together eleven chapters on the genre of Latin elegy by leading scholars in the field. Latin elegy is typically thought to have flourished for a brief period at Rome between c. 40 BC and the early decades of the first century AD; it was the pre-eminent vehicle for writing about amatory matters in this period and among its principal exponents were Propertius and Ovid, whose works constitute the focus of this volume. Their poems and poetic collections were, however, by no means restricted to the themes of love, even if amatory concerns often surface at unexpected moments in texts that are not ostensibly concerned with love. Both poets were alive to their precursors' writings in elegiacs, and so aetiological themes and reflection on contemporary political circumstances form an integral part of their poetry. Such concerns are explored in some of the chapters on Propertius, on Ovid's Fasti and exile poetry, and also in a Renaissance elegy that looks closely to its literary heritage as it comments on the concerns of its day. Some contributions to this volume also shed new light on the typically elegiac conceit of separation, notably in amatory and exilic texts, while others look to conceptions of Roman identity and the relationship between the natural world and the cultural, political and literary spheres. All of the chapters share an interest in the close-reading of texts as the basis for drawing broader conclusions about these fascinating authors, their poetry, and their worlds.