A Reading of Petronius' Satyrica

A Reading of Petronius' Satyrica
Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages : 397
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781666933062
ISBN-13 : 1666933066
Rating : 4/5 (066 Downloads)

Book Synopsis A Reading of Petronius' Satyrica by : Lee Fratantuono

Download or read book A Reading of Petronius' Satyrica written by Lee Fratantuono and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-08-22 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few surviving works of classical literature have cast the haunting, hilarious, insightful, and eerie spell conjured by the Satyricon of the Neronian courtier and eventual victim Petronius. Fragmentary, opaque, and enigmatic, at times it seems that deception and obfuscation are the favorite tricks of its author. A Reading of Petronius’ Satyricon offers a fresh look at this genre-defying masterpiece, proceeding episode by episode and scene by scene through a vision of the hell that humanity has fashioned for itself. Petronius mercilessly and exactingly appraises Rome’s embrace of the Golden Age dreams of the Augustan principate, judging his fellow citizens and himself by the yardstick of the Neronian reign that broods over them like an avenging specter. Petronius' Satyricon offers medicine for ambulatory corpses, a prescription that consists of notifying the dead of the diagnosis, and of pointing out the inevitable and eminently logical antidote for those consumed by insatiable hunger and unfulfillable longing. Bitterly sardonic and preternaturally serene, Lee Fratantuono’s reading reveals Petronius to be nothing less than the ultimate literary voice of a dying dynasty, a prose and poetic verbal magician of serious intention, a virtuoso in the art of unmasking the ghoulish horror and inconsolable sadness that lurk often just below the surface of the comic.


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