Poetic Autonomy in Ancient Rome

Luke Roman is currently Associate Professor of Classics at Memorial University. His main area of research is Latin literature, and topics of interest include poetry in first-person genres, literary autonomy, literary representations of the city of Rome, the materiality of books and writing, Roman concepts of literature and literariness, and post-classical reception of Roman literature.

• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ; INTRODUCTION: AUTONOMY ANCIENT AND MODERN ; 1. Lucilius, Catullus, and Cicero's Consulatus Suus: First-person poetry and the autonomist turn ; 2. Autarky, withdrawal, confinement: the autonomist niche in early Augustan poetry (ca. 39 BC-25 BC) ; 3. Augustan Poetry (ca. 25 BC-AD 17): the expansion of autonomy ; 4. Materialities of Use and Subordination: the challenge of the autonomist legacy ; CONCLUSION: POETRY AND OTHER GAMES ; BIBLIOGRAPHY ; INDEX

[Roman's] is a stimulating book whose close readings furnish readers of Latin poetry with a fresh perspective on an enduring problem in interpreting its forms and functions. It should attract a wide and appreciative audience and remain a permanent contribution to debates about how and why these poets wrote as they wrote.