Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan PoetryRoman poets of the Augustan period reinvented monsters from Greek myth, such as Harpies, Furies, and the warring Centaurs and Giants. These monsters represented the attractions and dangers of novelty in various contexts, ranging from social values to artistic innovation. Rome’s two great epics of the early principate, Vergil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, are both filled with mythical monsters. Like the culture that produced them, these poets were fascinated by unfamiliar forms despite their potential to disturb and disrupt. Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry is the first full-length study of monsters in Augustan poetry, and the first metapoetic reading of monstrosity in classical antiquity. Dunstan Lowe takes a fresh approach to the canonical works of Vergil, Ovid, and their contemporaries, contributing to a very recent turn toward marvels, monsters, and deformity in classical studies. Monsters provided a fantastical means to explore attitudes toward human nature, especially in its relationship with sex. They also symbolized deformations of poetic form. Such gestures were doomed to replay the defeat of hypermasculine monsters yet, paradoxically, they legitimized poetic innovation. Lowe proposes that monstrosity was acutely topical during the birth of the principate, having featured in aesthetic debates of the Hellenistic age, while also serving as an established, if controversial, means for public figures to amaze the population and display their power. Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry will appeal to scholars and students of classical Latin literature and of interdisciplinary monster studies. |
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Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Chapter 1 Monster Theory | 6 |
Chapter 2 Real Monsters | 44 |
Chapter 3 Feminine Exteriors | 70 |
Chapter 4 Feminine Interiors | 114 |
Chapter 5 BeastMen | 164 |
Chapter 6 Hyperbolic Monsters | 189 |
Conclusion | 233 |
| 237 | |
| 269 | |
Common terms and phrases
abnormal bodies Aeneas Aeneid aesthetic Allecto allegory ancient animal anti-Olympian antiquity Apollonius archaic Argon Argonautica Argus artistic Augustan poets Augustan Rome Augustus bestial Cacus Celaeno Centauromachy Centaurs century BC chapter Charybdis Chiron classical context creatures culture Cyclopes deformed describes Dirae discussed elegiac emotional epic episode Erinyes erotic especially example Fama female monsters feminine forms frenzy Furiae Furies genres Geryon Giants Gigantomachy Gorgon gorgoneion Greek grotesque grotesque body Hardie Harpies Hellenistic Hercules heroes Hesiod Homer Horace’s Horsfall human hybrid imagery images implies Latin Lucretius Maenads male Medusa Metamorphoses metaphor metapoetic Minotaur monstra monstrous monstrum myth mythical monsters mythological narrative novelty Odysseus Ovid Ovid’s pastoral Perseus physical Plin Pliny Pliny’s poem poetic poetry Polyphemus prodigies Propertius represent resembles rocks role Roman poets Scylla sexual Sirens snakes sublime supernatural symbolic texts Theog Theseus tion Tisiphone Trojans Turnus underworld Vergil Vergilian visual Vitruvius women
Bibliographic information
| Title | Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry |
| Author | Dunstan Lowe |
| Publisher | University of Michigan Press, 2015 |
| ISBN | 0472119516, 9780472119516 |
| Length | 274 pages |
| Subjects | › Poetry / Ancient & Classical Poetry / Epic Poetry / General |
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