In this Book
- In the Flesh: Embodied Identities in Roman Elegy
- Book
- 2019
- Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
summary
In the Flesh deeply engages postmodern and new materialist feminist thought in close readings of three significant poets—Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid—writing in the early years of Rome's Augustan Principate. In their poems, they represent the flesh-and-blood body in both its integrity and vulnerability, as an index of social position along intersecting axes of sex, gender, status, and class. Erika Zimmermann Damer underscores the fluid, dynamic, and contingent nature of identities in Roman elegy, in response to a period of rapid legal, political, and social change.
Recognizing this power of material flesh to shape elegiac poetry, she asserts, grants figures at the margins of this poetic discourse—mistresses, rivals, enslaved characters, overlooked members of households—their own identities, even when they do not speak. She demonstrates how the three poets create a prominent aesthetic of corporeal abjection and imperfection, associating the body as much with blood, wounds, and corporeal disintegration as with elegance, refinement, and sensuality.
Recognizing this power of material flesh to shape elegiac poetry, she asserts, grants figures at the margins of this poetic discourse—mistresses, rivals, enslaved characters, overlooked members of households—their own identities, even when they do not speak. She demonstrates how the three poets create a prominent aesthetic of corporeal abjection and imperfection, associating the body as much with blood, wounds, and corporeal disintegration as with elegance, refinement, and sensuality.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. vii-x
- Part 1: Our Bodies, Ourselves
- Part 2: Blood, Sex, and Tears: Problems of Embodiment in Roman Elegy
- 5. Body Talk: Cynthia Speaks
- pp. 174-203
- Conclusion
- pp. 249-254
- References
- pp. 295-318
- Index Locorum
- pp. 319-322
Additional Information
ISBN
9780299318734
Related ISBN(s)
9780299318703, 9780299318741
MARC Record
OCLC
1085892103
Pages
352
Launched on MUSE
2019-02-18
Language
English
Open Access
No