P. Howell, Martial

Peter Howell, Martial, London: Duckworth, coll. "Ancients in Action", 2009. 128 pages.

• ISBN 9781853997020
• £11.99

Recension par Shannon N. Byrne (Xavier University) dans Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.10.18. 

Présentation de l'éditeur:

Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis) was a Spanish writer who lived in Rome in the second half of the first century AD. He wrote only in the genre of epigram, invented by the Greeks, which he chose because of his dislike of all that was pretentious and escapist in contemporary literature, where stale mythological topics were regarded as both ‘elevated' and, in times of political danger, safe. His own boundless interest in the life he saw around him in Rome, and his sense of humour, led him to prefer to express himself in short and highly polished poems. He brought the genre to such a pitch of perfection that his work has defined it for subsequent authors. Although only a limited number of his own epigrams conform to the dictionary definition as ‘a short poem ending in a witty turn of thought', their effectiveness has shaped this definition. This book tells what we know about the man's commonsense attitude to life, and his hatred of hypocrisy and malice. It assesses his debt to literary tradition and the astonishing influence he had on later writers.

Peter Howell was Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classics, Royal Holloway, University of London until his retirement in 1999. He is the author of A Commentary on Book I of the Epigrams of Martial (1980) and Martial: The Epigrams, Book V (1995).