Maria Plaza sets out to analyze the function of humor in the Roman satirists Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. Her starting point is that satire is driven by two motives, which are to a certain extent opposed: to display humor, and to promote a serious moral message. She argues that, while the Roman satirist needs humor for his work's aesthetic merit, his proposed message suffers from the ambivalence that humor brings with it. Her analysis shows that this paradox is not only socio-ideological but also aesthetic, forming the ground for the curious, hybrid nature of Roman satire.

Maria Plaza sets out to analyse the function of humour in the Roman satirists Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. Her starting point is that satire is driven by two motives, which are to a certain extent opposed: to display humour, and to promote a serious moral message. She argues that, while the Roman satirist needs humour for his work's aesthetic merit, his proposed message suffers from the ambivalence that humour brings with it. Her analysis shows that this paradox is not only socio-ideological but also aesthetic, forming the ground for the curious, hybrid nature of Roman satire.

The last decades have seen a lively interest in Roman verse satire, and this collection of essays introduces the reader to the best of modern critical writing on Persius and Juvenal. The eight articles on Persius range from detailed analyses of his fine technique to readings inspired by theoretical approaches such as New Historicism, Reader-Response Criticism, and Dialogics. The nine selections on Juvenal focus upon the pivotal question in modern Juvenalian criticism: how serious is the poet when he voices his appallingly misogynist, homophobic, and xenophobic moralism? The contributors...