Satire and the Threat of Speech: Horace's Satires, Book 1

by Catherine M. Schlegel

Overview

In his first book of Satires, written in the late, violent days of the Roman republic, Horace exposes satiric speech as a tool of power and domination. Using critical theories from classics, speech act theory, and others, Catherine Schlegel argues that Horace's acute poetic observation of hostile speech provides insights into the operations of verbal control that are relevant to his time and to ours. She demonstrates that though Horace is forced by his political circumstances to develop a new, unthreatening style of satire, his poems contain a challenge to our most profound habits of violence, hierarchy, and domination. Focusing on the relationships between speaker and audience and between old and new style, Schlegel examines the internal conflicts of a notoriously difficult text. This exciting contribution to the field of Horatian studies will be of interest to classicists as well as other scholars interested in the genre of satire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299209506
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	01/03/2006
Series:	Wisconsin Studies in Classics
Edition description:	1
Pages:	198
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Catherine Schlegel is associate professor of classics at Notre Dame.

Editorial Reviews

"This is a gracefully written, refreshingly lucid study that yields a number of fine observations along its way to reaching important conclusions."—Daniel Hooley, University of Missouri

“Catherine Schlegel brings an uncommon critical acumen to bear on the vexed issue of the scope and rhetorical function of Horace’s satiric voice.”—Gregson Davis, Duke University

From the Publisher