The Neronian Grotesque

During the reign of Nero, Roman culture produced some of its most spectacular works of art and literature, and some of its strangest. This study explores these effects across textual and visual media in an integrated way.

Weiss' analysis allows for appreciation of the shared strategies of composition, overlaps between literary and visual rhetoric, the role of context in shaping the reception of a work, and the authority of the reader/viewer to generate meaning. The volume offers an account o...