Catullus, Cicero, and a Society of Patrons
The Generation of the Text

This is a study of the emergence, development, and florescence of a distinctly 'late Republican' socio-textual culture as recorded in the writings of this period's two most influential authors, Catullus and Cicero. It reveals a multi-faceted textual - rather than more traditionally defined 'literary' - world that both defines the intellectual life of the late Republic, and lays the foundations for those authors of the Principate and Empire who identified this period as their literary source and inspiration. By first questioning, and then rejecting, the traditional polarisation of Catullus and Cicero, and by broadening the scope of late Republican socio-literary studies to include intersections of language, social practice, and textual materiality, this book presents a fresh picture of both the socio-textual world of the late Republic and the primary authors through whom this world would gain renown.

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'Stroup's general argument is worth following. It leads, in the second half of the book, to an ambitious presentation of a shared 'text' of intellectual life, in which literary genres, modes of expression and creative achievements were extraordinarily elevated in cultivated society. Just as importantly, these provided some of the crucial foundations and principles on which the great writers of the next generation, Horace, Virgil and Ovid, were to build.' The Times Literary Supplement

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Product details

• Date Published: February 2015
• format: Paperback
• isbn: 9781107477810
• length: 324 pages

• dimensions: 230 x 151 x 20 mm
• weight: 0.5kg
• availability: Available