Restoring to Catullus a provocative power that familiarity has tended to dim, this book argues that Catullus challenges us to think about the nature of lyric in new ways. Fitzgerald shows how Catullus's poetry reflects the conditions of its own consumption as it explores the terms and possibilities of the poet's license. Reading the poetry in relation to the drama of position played out between poet, poem, and reader, the author produces a fresh interpretation of almost all of Catullus's oeuvre. Running through the book is an analysis of the ideological stakes behind the construction of the...

This book deals with the ways in which the ancient Roman literary imagination explored the phenomenon of slavery. It asks what the free imagination made of the experience of living with slaves, beings who both were and were not fellow humans. The book covers the full range of Roman literature, and is arranged thematically. It discusses the ideological relation of Roman literature to the institution of slavery, and also the ways in which slavery provided a metaphor for other relationships and experiences, and in particular for literature itself.

The idea of variety may seem too diffuse, obvious, or nebulous to be worth scrutinizing, but modern usage masks the rich history of the term. This book examines the meaning, value, and practice of variety from the vantage point of Latin literature and its reception and reveals the enduring importance of the concept up to the present day.

William Fitzgerald looks at the definition and use of the Latin term varietas and how it has played out in different works and with different authors. He shows that, starting with the Romans, variety has played a key role in our thinking about...