The Captor's Image: Greek Culture In Roman Ecphrasis (classical Culture And Society)
by Basil Dufallo /
2013 / English / PDF
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An influential view of ecphrasis--the literary description of art
objects--chiefly treats it as a way for authors to write about
their own texts without appearing to do so, and even insist upon
the aesthetic dominance of the literary text over the visual image.
However, when considering its use in ancient Roman literature, this
interpretation proves insufficient.
An influential view of ecphrasis--the literary description of art
objects--chiefly treats it as a way for authors to write about
their own texts without appearing to do so, and even insist upon
the aesthetic dominance of the literary text over the visual image.
However, when considering its use in ancient Roman literature, this
interpretation proves insufficient.The Captor's Image
The Captor's Image
argues for the need to see Roman ecphrasis, with its prevalent
focus on Hellenic images, as a site of subtle, ongoing competition
between Greek and Roman cultures. Through close readings of
ecphrases in a wide range of Latin authors--from Plautus, Catullus,
and Horace to Vergil, Ovid, and Martial, among others--Dufallo
contends that Roman ecphrasis reveals an ambivalent receptivity to
Greek culture, an attitude with implications for the shifting
notions of Roman identity in the Republican and Imperial periods.
Individual chapters explore how the simple assumption of a
self-asserting ecphrastic text is called into question by comic
performance, intentionally inconsistent narrative, satire, Greek
religious iconography, the contradictory associations of epic
imagery, and the author's subjection to a patron. Visual material
such as wall painting, statuary, and drinkware vividly
contextualizes the discussion. As the first book-length treatment
of artistic ecphrasis at Rome,
argues for the need to see Roman ecphrasis, with its prevalent
focus on Hellenic images, as a site of subtle, ongoing competition
between Greek and Roman cultures. Through close readings of
ecphrases in a wide range of Latin authors--from Plautus, Catullus,
and Horace to Vergil, Ovid, and Martial, among others--Dufallo
contends that Roman ecphrasis reveals an ambivalent receptivity to
Greek culture, an attitude with implications for the shifting
notions of Roman identity in the Republican and Imperial periods.
Individual chapters explore how the simple assumption of a
self-asserting ecphrastic text is called into question by comic
performance, intentionally inconsistent narrative, satire, Greek
religious iconography, the contradictory associations of epic
imagery, and the author's subjection to a patron. Visual material
such as wall painting, statuary, and drinkware vividly
contextualizes the discussion. As the first book-length treatment
of artistic ecphrasis at Rome,The Captor's Image
The Captor's Image
resituates a major literary trope within its hybrid cultural
context while advancing the idea of ecphrasis as a cultural
practice through which the Romans sought to redefine their identity
with, and against, Greekness.
resituates a major literary trope within its hybrid cultural
context while advancing the idea of ecphrasis as a cultural
practice through which the Romans sought to redefine their identity
with, and against, Greekness.