Roman Sexualities / edited by Judith P. Hallett and Marilyn B. Skinner.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Skinner, Marilyn B.

Hallett, Judith P.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sex in literature.

Sex customs.

Manners and customs.

Feminist criticism.

Classical literature.

Rome--In literature.

Rome.

Sex customs--Rome--History.

Rome (Empire).

Rome--Social life and customs.

Rome--History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (356 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1998.

Summary:

This collection of essays seeks to establish Roman constructions of sexuality and gender difference as a distinct area of research, complementing work already done on Greece to give a fuller picture of ancient sexuality. By applying feminist critical tools to forms of public discourse, including literature, history, law, medicine, and political oratory, the essays explore the hierarchy of power reflected so strongly in most Roman sexual relations, where noblemen acted as the penetrators and women, boys, and slaves the penetrated. In many cases, the authors show how these roles could be inverted--in ways that revealed citizens' anxieties during the days of the early Empire, when traditional power structures seemed threatened. In the essays, Jonathan Walters defines the impenetrable male body as the ideational norm; Holt Parker and Catharine Edwards treat literary and legal models of male sexual deviance; Anthony Corbeill unpacks political charges of immoral behavior at banquets, while Marilyn B. Skinner, Ellen Oliensis, and David Fredrick trace linkages between social status and the gender role of the male speaker in Roman lyric and elegy; Amy Richlin interrogates popular medical belief about the female body; Sandra R. Joshel examines the semiotics of empire underlying the historiographic portrayal of the empress Messalina; Judith P. Hallett and Pamela Gordon critique Roman caricatures of the woman-desiring woman; and Alison Keith discovers subversive allusions to the tragedy of Dido in the elegist Sulpicia's self-depiction as a woman in love.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION. Quod multofit aliter in Graecia . . .

PART ONE: UNMARKED SEXUALITY

ONE. Invading the Roman Body: Manliness and Impenetrability in Roman Thought

PART TWO: WAYWARD SEXUALITIES

TWO. The Teratogenic Grid

THREE. Unspeakable Professions: Public Performance and Prostitution in Ancient Rome

PART THREE: GENDER SLIPPAGE IN LITERARY CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE MASCULINE

FOUR. Dining Deviants in Roman Political Invective

FIVE. Ego mulier. The Construction of Male Sexuality in Catullus

SIX. The Erotics of amicitia: Readings in Tibullus, Propertius, and Horace

SEVEN. Reading Broken Skin: Violence in Roman Elegy

PART FOUR: MALE CONSTRUCTIONS OF "WOMAN"

EIGHT. Pliny's Brassiere

NINE. Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire: Tacitus's Messalina

TEN. Female Homoeroticism and the Denial of Roman Reality in Latin Literature

ELEVEN. The Lover's Voice in Heroides 15: Or, Why Is Sappho a Man?

PART FIVE: FEMALE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DESIRING SUBJECT

TWELVE. Tandem venit amor: A Roman Woman Speaks of Love

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [311]-332) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691011790

0691011796

9780691219547

0691219540

OCLC:

1273306158