This book examines the love elegies of the Roman poets Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid from the point of view of the way the meanings attributed to the poems arise out of the interests and preoccupations of the cultural situation in which they are read. It combines detailed discussions of individual poems with discussion and criticism of a variety of sophisticated modern theoretical approaches. It thus aims to advance the argument not only in the field of elegy, but also in issues such as gender, ideology and the theory of reading.

This book is a critically sophisticated introduction to the epic tradition of the early Roman empire, specifically the epic poems of Ovid, Lucan, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, and Silius Italicus. It explores the use that they all make of the great Augustan epic of Virgil, the Aeneid. Instead of being feeble imitations of the great classic (a common critical viewpoint), these poems are shown to be dynamic works that use the Virgilian model creatively to reflect the moral and political issues of their own day. All Latin is translated.

This book exploits recent reevaluations of Roman religion in order to argue in favor of taking the religious dimensions of Roman literature seriously, as important cultural work in their own right. Instead of seeing Roman religious and literary activity as derivative and parasitic upon Greek originals, the book questions the romanticizing biases of classical studies, and argues for the power and creativity of the Romans in their engagements with Greek culture.

What did the city of Rome mean to ancient Romans? Roman writers, Cicero, Virgil, Juvenal and others, described their city in many different ways: they marveled at its beauty, they despaired of its dirt, they explored its history, they lamented its absence. Their writings have played a vital part in determining responses to the city both in their own time and in later centuries. This book explores a wide range of descriptions of the city from later periods as well as from antiquity.

This is a book about how the poets of Classical Rome found artistic inspiration in the words and themes of their poetic predecessors. It combines traditional Classical approaches to poetic allusion and imitation with modern literary-theoretical ways of thinking about how texts are used and reused, valued and revalued, in particular reading communities. Like other volumes in the series it is among the most broadly conceived short books on Roman literature to be published in recent years.

This is a book about how the poets of Classical Rome found artistic inspiration in the words and themes of their poetic predecessors. It combines traditional Classical approaches to poetic allusion and imitation with modern literary-theoretical ways of thinking about how texts are used and reused, valued and revalued, in particular reading communities. Like other volumes in the series it is among the most broadly conceived short books on Roman literature to be published in recent years.