ENGLISH

Statius' Silvae and the Poetics of Empire

By Carole E. Newlands

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2002
ISBN
052180891X, 9780521808910, 9780511020001
LCC
PA6698 .N38 2002
Open Library ID
OL10417883M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
2 MB (1614561 bytes)
Pages
366\366
Scanned
yes
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

Statius' Silvae, written late in the reign of Domitian (AD 81–96), are a new kind of poetry that confronts the challenge of imperial majesty or private wealth by new poetic strategies and forms. As poems of praise, they delight in poetic excess whether they honour the emperor or the poet's friends. Yet extravagant speech is also capacious speech. It functions as a strategy for conveying the wealth and grandeur of villas, statues and precious works of art as well as the complex emotions aroused by the material and political culture of empire. The Silvae are the product of a divided, self-fashioning voice. Statius was born in Naples of non-aristocratic parents. His position as outsider to the culture he celebrates gives him a unique perspective on it. The Silvae are poems of anxiety as well as praise, expressive of the tensions within the later period of Domitian's reign.

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