Course Description
Readings from such satirists as Horace, Juvenal, and others.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students are required to direct seminar sessions and write more extensive research papers.
Athena Title
Roman Satire
Prerequisite
LATN 4000 or permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
1. Student will be able to trace development of meaning of the term satura over 500 years, from the sense "filled"/"mixed" to the sense "satire." 2. Student will translate and study evidence suggesting a pre-literary "dramatic" satura and assess the likelihood of the tradition. 3. Student will translate and determine in what sense Ennius' saturae are "satirical." 4. Through selected readings from the satires of Lucilius, the student will assess the correctness of Horace's statement that Lucilius was the "inventor" of the genre. 5. Student will translate selections from, and assess traditional elements and innovations in, Horace's Satires. 6. Student will translate selections from the Satires of Juvenal and assess how these poems represent the culmination of the tradition of verse satire in Rome. 7. Student will develop ability to read satire critically, in order to use it as historical evidence. 8. Student will consider relationship between changing satiric techniques and the changing social, political, and moral environment of the state from the 2nd century BC to ca. AD 150. 9. Student will gain ability to assess "autobiographical" elements in Roman satire. 10. Student will learn to analyze rhetorical techniques and argumentation, including numerous stylistic and structural devices common to Latin satire. 11. Student will gain an increased understanding of classical Roman culture, especially Roman politics, social institutions, religion, philosophy, daily life, literature, morality, and the wit. 12. Student will gain an understanding of the evolution of the influential sub-genre, Menippean satire. 13. Student will consider the satirical elements in various Greek genres, assess the quality and extent of their influence on Roman satire, and interpret the meaning of Quintilian's statement, Satura tota nostra est. 14. Student will engage in critical analysis of semantic, syntactic, grammatical, stylistic, ideological, political, and historical evidence in Roman satire. 15. Student will produce writing appropriate to the subject matter of Roman satire and to the discipline of classics.
Topical Outline
I. Evolution of the term Satura: Varro and Diomedes II. Livy's theory of a pre-literary dramatic satire III. The "Satires" of Naevius and Ennius IV. Lucilius and the "Lucilianus character:" Satire and Revolution V. Horace's "Conversations:" telling the truth with a smile VI. Persius, Nero, and the Stoic Opposition VII: Growth of a sub-genre: the Menippeans of Varro, Seneca, and Petronius VIII: Juvenal the Satirist: the rhetoric of "Savage Indignation" IX: Qunitilian's Dictum and the Greeks