Overview

First-person poetry is a familiar genre in Latin literature. Propertius, Catullus, and Horace deployed the first-person speaker in a variety of ways that either bolster or undermine the link between this figure and the poet himself. In I, the Poet, Kathleen McCarthy offers a new approach to understanding the ubiquitous use of a first-person voice in Augustan-age poetry, taking on several of the central debates in the field of Latin literary studies-including the inheritance of the Greek tradition, the shift from oral performance to written collections, and the status of the poetic ""I-voice."" In light of her own experience as a twenty-first century reader, for whom Latin poetry is meaningful across a great gulf of linguistic, cultural, and historical distances, McCarthy positions these poets as the self-conscious readers of and heirs to a long tradition of Greek poetry, which prompted them to explore radical forms of communication through the poetic form. Informed in part by the ""New Lyric Studies,"" I, the Poet will appeal not only to scholars of Latin literature but to readers across a range of literary studies who seek to understand the Roman contexts which shaped canonical poetic genres.

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9781501739552

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Reviews

I, The Poet is an elegant and exceptionally interesting book about an important topic in Latin literature, and I strongly recommend it. -- Andrew Feldherr, Princeton University, author of <I>Playing Gods</I>

Kathleen McCarthy's book is a stimulating contribution to the application of narrative theory to the study of several major Latin poets. -- Hayden Pelliccia, Cornell University, author of Mind, Body, and Speech in Homer and Pindar I, The Poet is an elegant and exceptionally interesting book about an important topic in Latin literature, and I strongly recommend it. -- Andrew Feldherr, Princeton University, author of <I>Playing Gods</I>

I, The Poet is an elegant and exceptionally interesting book about an important topic in Latin literature, and I strongly recommend it. -- Andrew Feldherr, Princeton University, author of <I>Playing Gods</I> Kathleen McCarthy's book is a stimulating contribution to the application of narrative theory to the study of several major Latin poets. -- Hayden Pelliccia, Cornell University, author of Mind, Body, and Speech in Homer and Pindar By posing a deceptively simple question-is the I addressing a you in a given Latin poem also performing a poem, or just talking?-McCarthy's elegant eye-opener of a book productively disrupts stale categories and stands to reinvigorate the literary study of Latin poetry. -- David Wray, The University of Chicago

Author Information

Kathleen McCarthy is Professor of Classics at University of California, Berkeley. She is author of Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy.

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