Use this URL to cite or link to this record in EThOS: | https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.558923 |
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Title: | The 'epic' of Martial | ||||||
Author: | Sapsford, Francesca May |
ISNI:
0000 0004 2721 7947
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Awarding Body: | University of Birmingham | ||||||
Current Institution: | University of Birmingham | ||||||
Date of Award: | 2012 | ||||||
Availability of Full Text: |
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Abstract: | |||||||
This thesis explores the composition and arrangement of Martial’s twelve-book series, the Epigrams. I investigate the way in which key themes combine to create a pseudo-narrative for the reader to follow which connects not only individual books but the series as a whole. This twelve-book series creates an ’anti-epic’, something which is meant to be considered as a whole and read, and reread, as such. In the course of investigating the inter- and intratextual links within the Epigrams, we see how Martial’s corpus instructs its reader on how (and even where) to read the text. In doing so Martial is engaging with a literary discourse at the end of the first century on different patterns of reading. The key themes explored, oral sex and os impurum, food and dining, and a literary theme comprised of reading and writing, all form part of this programmatic literary instruction to the reader. I have identified the importance of ’orality’ within the Epigrams as part of the defined method of reading. Applying concepts from Reader-Response theory,and thinking about the way readers read, we can see that Martial’s books of epigrams are more than the sum of their parts.
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Supervisor: | Not available | Sponsor: | Not available | ||||
Qualification Name: | Thesis (Ph.D.) | Qualification Level: | Doctoral | ||||
EThOS ID: | uk.bl.ethos.558923 | DOI: | Not available | ||||
Keywords: | CB History of civilization ; D051 Ancient History ; PA Classical philology | ||||||
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