Review

"No review can do full justice to the wealth of sophisticated and provocative ideas put forth in this volume with remarkable clarity of expression and unfailing wit." Costas Panayotakis, Classical Review

"Substantial interpretative claims, contrary to what we might call received opinion, but nonetheless convincing, underpin each chapter. There are many good points to this book, not the least of which is its bold confrontation with standard accounts of satire that seek to smooth out the genre's glaring contradictions. By examining poetic failure rather than success, by focusing on the audience rather than the author, and by making us aware of what is lacking amid all the fullness, F. compels us to think differently about Roman satire and our readings of it. The overarching proposition that we can connect the anxiety about genre and self-expression visible in satire with broader crises in identity and self-formation among educated Romans of the early empire is entirely persuasive." David Larmour, Classical Philology

"This is a book on an important topic by a perceptive and articulate critic. It is rich in ideas an an unusually entertaining read." Llewelyn Morgan, Brasenose College

Book Description

The first complete study of Roman verse satire to appear since 1976, this book provides a fresh and exciting survey of the field, taking each of Rome's satirists individually, in their proper order. But rather than describing satire's history as a series of discrete achievements, it relates those achievements to one another in such a way that, in the movement from Lucilius, to Horace, to Persius, to Juvenal, we are made to sense, and see performed, the increasing pressure of imperial oversight in ancient Rome.