In this dissertation I will show that references to epic in Juvenal’s Satires, through allusions ... more In this dissertation I will show that references to epic in Juvenal’s Satires, through allusions to epic subject matter or use of epic language, have a more prominent role than has often been assumed. Rather than labelling these epic elements ‘mock-epic’ or ‘epic parody’, I will examine epic references from across the Juvenalian corpus in order to build a picture of the central themes with which epic is associated in Juvenal. I do not have space to discuss every reference to epic, and so I will be selective: I have focussed on Juvenal’s use of epic in relation to the typical satirist’s themes of greed and luxury (which stand in opposition to traditionally Roman virtues). For Juvenal, those at both ends of the social hierarchy are guilty of the moral crimes of avaritia and mollitia, but in different ways. Aristocrats evoke the heroes of martial epic while engaging in no such virtuous activity, while upstart merchants and other ‘lower’ characters evoke the heroes of adventure epic, and although they embark on adventures, they are compromised either by their desire for financial gain, or by their unheroic effeminacy. In the final chapter I will explore the possibility that the epic past to which Juvenal’s characters are so desperate to lay claim holds none of the prestige it is assumed to hold: at times, Juvenal follows the topos of decline and nostalgia, idealising the past, but at others he undermines it, denigrating the past in the same way he denigrates the present. This may have ramifications for the actions of his Roman characters, removing any hopes they have of elevating themselves through epic associations.
In this dissertation I will show that references to epic in Juvenal’s Satires, through allusions ... more In this dissertation I will show that references to epic in Juvenal’s Satires, through allusions to epic subject matter or use of epic language, have a more prominent role than has often been assumed. Rather than labelling these epic elements ‘mock-epic’ or ‘epic parody’, I will examine epic references from across the Juvenalian corpus in order to build a picture of the central themes with which epic is associated in Juvenal. I do not have space to discuss every reference to epic, and so I will be selective: I have focussed on Juvenal’s use of epic in relation to the typical satirist’s themes of greed and luxury (which stand in opposition to traditionally Roman virtues). For Juvenal, those at both ends of the social hierarchy are guilty of the moral crimes of avaritia and mollitia, but in different ways. Aristocrats evoke the heroes of martial epic while engaging in no such virtuous activity, while upstart merchants and other ‘lower’ characters evoke the heroes of adventure epic, and although they embark on adventures, they are compromised either by their desire for financial gain, or by their unheroic effeminacy. In the final chapter I will explore the possibility that the epic past to which Juvenal’s characters are so desperate to lay claim holds none of the prestige it is assumed to hold: at times, Juvenal follows the topos of decline and nostalgia, idealising the past, but at others he undermines it, denigrating the past in the same way he denigrates the present. This may have ramifications for the actions of his Roman characters, removing any hopes they have of elevating themselves through epic associations.
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