Horace and the Gift Economy of Patronage

Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. xi, 281 pages; 24 cm; bibliographical references (pages 255-268) and indexes. As new, unread remainder copy with wee bit of external wear, sunning to spine and adhesive traces of sticker removal to front. Unread. Paperback. ISBN: 0520226038; 9780520226036

The Joan Palevsky Imprint in Classical Literature; Classics and Contemporary Thought; 7 [Series]

Contents: Gladiatorial Imagery: The Rhetoric of Expenditure --; Recent Studies of Horace and Literary Patronage --; Autonomy and the Discursive Conventions of Patronage --; Literary Amicitia --; The Gift Economy of Patronage --; Poetry and the Marketplace --; The Embedded Economy of Rome --; Gift and Delay in the Horatian Chronology --; Tragic History, Lyric Expiation, and the Gift of Sacrifice --; Pollio's History and the Purification of Ritual Violence: Odes 2.1 --; Ritual Devotio and the Lyric Curse: Odes 2.13 --; The Roman Odes and Tragic Sacrifice --; The Gift of Ideology --; The Gifts of the Golden Age: Land, Debt, and Aesthetic Surplus --; Land, Otium, Art: Eclogue 1 --; Gratia and the Poetics of Excess: Eclogue 4 --; The Man Protesteth Too Much: Satires 2.6 --; The Cornucopia and Hermeneutic Abundance: Odes 1.17 --; From Patron to Friend: Epistolary Refashioning and the Economics of Refusal --; Epistolary Subjectivity --; Dyadic Disequilibrium and the Alternation of Debt: Epistles 1.1 --; The Duplicitous Speaker of Epistles 1.7 --; The Economics of Social Inscription --; The Epistolary Farm and the Status Implications of Epicurean Ataraxia --; Pastoral and Privation --; The Economy of Otium and the Material Conditions of the Aequus Animus: Epistles 1.14 --; The Tenuis Imago, or the Vulnerability of an Image: Epistles 1.16 --; Conclusion: The Gift and the Reading Community.

"This innovative study explores selected odes and epistles by the late-first-century poet Horace in light of modern anthropological and literary theory. Phebe Lowell Bowditch looks in particular at how the relationship between Horace and his patron Maecenas is reflected in these poems' themes and rhetorical figures. Using anthropological studies on gift exchange, she uncovers an implicit economic dynamic in these poems and skillfully challenges standard views on literary patronage in this period. Horace and the Gift Economy of Patronage provides a striking new understanding of Horace's poems and the Roman system of patronage, and also demonstrates the relevance of New Historicist and Marxist critical paradigms for Roman studies. In addition to incorporating anthropological and sociological perspectives, Bowditch's theoretical approach makes use of concepts drawn from linguistics, deconstruction, and the work of Michel Foucault. She weaves together these ideas in an original approach to Horace's use of golden age imagery, his language concerning public gifts or munera, his metaphors of sacrifice, and the rhetoric of class and status found in these poems. Horace and the Gift Economy of Patronage represents an original approach to central issues and questions in the study of Latin literature, and sheds new light on our understanding of Roman society in general."—Publisher.

Authors and patrons in literature. Patron and client -- Rome. Literary patrons -- Rome. Gifts in literature. Gifts (Roman law) Authors and patrons -- Rome -- History. Écrivains et mécènes -- Rome -- Histoire. Patron et client -- Rome. Donations (Droit romain) Écrivains et mécènes dans la littérature. Cadeaux dans la littérature. Horace -- Et l'économie politique. Écrivains et mécènes -- Rome. Mécènes de la littérature -- Rome. 18.46 ancient Latin literature. Authors and patrons. Authors and patrons in literature. Economic history. Economics. Gifts in literature. Gifts (Roman law) Literary patrons. Manners and customs. Patron and client. Mäzenatentum Patronage. Cliëntelisme. Gedichten. Latijn. Authors and patrons -- Rome. Patron and client -- Rome. Named Person: Horace -- Knowledge -- Economics. Horace -- Knowledge -- Economics. Horace. Horatius Flaccus, Quintus v65-v8 Horace. Horatius Flaccus, Q., 65-8 v. Chr. Maecenas, Gaius Cilnius. Horatius Flaccus, Quintus. Geographic: Rome -- Social life and customs. Rome -- Economic conditions. Rome (Italy) -- Social life and customs. Rome (Italie) -- Mœurs et coutumes. Rome -- Conditions économiques. Italy -- Rome. Rome (Empire)