Understanding Latin literature /

Abstract

Includes bibliographical references and index.Virgil and the meaning of the Aeneid -- Role models for Roman women and men in Livy -- What is Latin literature? -- What does studying Latin literature involve? -- Receptions and reverberations of Latin literature -- Making Roman identity: multiculturalism, militarism and masculinity -- Performance and spectacle, life and death -- Intersections of power: praise, politics and patrons -- Annihilation and abjection: living death and living slavery -- Writing "real" lives -- Introspection and individual identity -- Literary texture and intertextuality -- Metapoetics -- Allegory -- Overcoming an inferiority complex: constructing Roman literature