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Roman Literary Culture from Plautus to Macrobius
Contributor(s): Fantham, Elaine (Author)
ISBN: 1421408368     ISBN-13: 9781421408361
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
OUR PRICE:   $33.25  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: July 2013
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Ancient And Classical
- History | Ancient - General
Dewey: 870.900
LCCN: 2012035467
Series: Ancient Society and History
Physical Information: 0.8" H x 6" W x 9" (1.10 lbs) 368 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - Ancient (To 499 A.D.)
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Scholars of ancient literature have often focused on the works and lives of major authors rather than on such questions as how these works were produced and who read them. In Roman Literary Culture, Elaine Fantham fills that void by examining the changing social and historical context of literary production in ancient Rome and its empire.

Fantham's first edition discussed the habits of Roman readers and developments in their means of access to literature, from booksellers and copyists to pirated publications and libraries. She examines the issues of patronage and the utility of literature and shows how the constraints of the physical object itself--the ancient "book"--influenced the practice of both reading and writing. She also explores the ways in which ancient criticism and critical attitudes reflected cultural assumptions of the time.

In this second edition, Fantham expands the scope of her study. In the new first chapter, she examines the beginning of Roman literature--more than a century before the critical studies of Cicero and Varro. She discusses broader entertainment culture, which consisted of live performances of comedy and tragedy as well as oral presentations of the epic. A new final chapter looks at Pagan and Christian literature from the third to fifth centuries, showing how this period in Roman literature reflected its foundations in the literary culture of the late republic and Augustan age. This edition also includes a new preface and an updated bibliography.


Contributor Bio(s): Fantham, Elaine: - Elaine Fantham is Giger Professor Emerita of Latin at Princeton University and an honorary fellow at Trinity College, University of Toronto. She is former president of the American Philological Association and was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal by the association in 2009. She is a coauthor of Women in the Classical World: Image and Text.