Petronius the Poet Verse and Literary Tradition in the Satyricon

The ancient novel, previously relegated to the margins of literary study, has recently taken its place at centre stage. Petronius’ Satyricon, the oldest surviving work of prose fiction, is in many respects an arrestingly modern ancient novel but the inclusion within it of thirty short poems and two long ones introduces an alien feature in need of investigation. In this study, Catherine Connors draws on developments in Latin literary criticism to take a comprehensive approach to the Satyricon’s poems, reminiscences of poetic texts, and the figure of the poet, assessing the ways in which they fragment and refashion established literary forms into a new amalgam of prose fiction. This book will be of interest to students of Latin literature, Neronian culture, and the early history of the novel. All Latin and Greek is translated.

Prefatory note; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Introduction: verse and genre in Petronian criticism; 1. Refashioning the epic past; 2. In the frame: context and continuity in the short poems; 3. Troy retaken: repetition and re-enactment in the Troiae Halosis; 4. The Bellum Civile; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index of passages discussed; Index of subjects.

In this study, Catherine Connors draws on recent developments in Latin literary criticism to take a comprehensive approach to the Satyricon's poems, reminiscences of poetic texts, and the figure of the poet, assessing the ways in which they fragment and refashion established literary forms into a new amalgam of prose fiction.