Horace and the gift economy of patronage / Phebe Lowell Bowditch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bowditch, Phebe Lowell, 1961-

Series:

Joan Palevsky imprint in classical literature

Classics and contemporary thought ; 7.

The Joan Palevsky imprint in classical literature

Classics and contemporary thought ; 7

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Horace--Knowledge and learning--Economics.

Horace.

Economics.

Authors and patrons--Rome--History.

Authors and patrons.

Authors and patrons in literature.

Rome--Social life and customs.

Rome.

Rome (Empire).

Manners and customs.

Rome--Economic conditions.

Economic conditions.

Patron and client--Rome.

Patron and client.

Gifts in literature.

Gifts (Roman law).

Physical Description:

xi, 281 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2001]

Summary:

This innovative study explores selected Odes and Epistles by the late first-century poet Horace in light of modern anthropological and literary theory. Phebe Lowell Bowditch looks in particular at how the relationship between Horace and his patron Maecenas is reflected in these poems' themes and rhetorical figures. Using anthropological studies on gift exchange, she uncovers an implicit economic dynamic in these poems and skillfully challenges standard views on literary patronage in this period. Horace and the Gift Economy of Patronage provides a striking new understanding of Horace's poems and the Roman system of patronage, while also demonstrating the relevance of New Historicist and Marxist critical paradigms for Roman studies.

Contents:

Gladiatorial Imagery: The Rhetoric of Expenditure 1

Recent Studies of Horace and Literary Patronage 10

Autonomy and the Discursive Conventions of Patronage 14

Literary Amicitia 19

1. The Gift Economy of Patronage 31

Poetry and the Marketplace 31

The Embedded Economy of Rome 39

Gift and Delay in the Horatian Chronology 57

2. Tragic History, Lyric Expiation, and the Gift of Sacrifice 64

Pollio's History and the Purification of Ritual Violence: Odes 2.1 72

Ritual Devotio and the Lyric Curse: Odes 2.13 84

The Roman Odes and Tragic Sacrifice 95

The Gift of Ideology 108

3. The Gifts of the Golden Age: Land, Debt, and Aesthetic Surplus 116

Land, Otium, Art: Eclogue 1 122

Gratia and the Poetics of Excess: Eclogue 4 129

The Man Protesteth Too Much: Satires 2.6 142

The Cornucopia and Hermeneutic Abundance: Odes 1.17 154

4. From Patron to Friend: Epistolary Refashioning and the Economics of Refusal 161

Epistolary Subjectivity 164

Dyadic Disequilibrium and the Alternation of Debt: Epistles 1.1 170

The Duplicitous Speaker of Epistles 1.7 181

The Economics of Social Inscription 193

5. The Epistolary Farm and the Status Implications of Epicurean Ataraxia 211

Pastoral and Privation 212

The Economy of Otium and the Material Conditions of the Aequus Animus: Epistles 1.14 221

The Tenuis Imago, or the Vulnerability of an Image: Epistles 1.16 239

Conclusion: The Gift and the Reading Community 247.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-268) and indexes.

ISBN:

0520226011

0520226038

OCLC:

43434580