Ancient Roman literary gardens

• Verfasst von: Myers, Karen Sara [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Ancient Roman literary gardens
• Titelzusatz: gender, genre, and geopoetics
• Verf.angabe: K. Sara Myers
• Verlagsort: New York, NY
• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• E-Jahr: 2024
• Jahr: [2024]
• Umfang: 1 online resource.
• Gesamttitel/Reihe: Oxford scholarship online
• Fussnoten: Includes bibliographical references and index. - Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on June 4, 2024)
• ISBN: 978-0-19-777323-9
• DOI: doi:10.1093/oso/9780197773208.001.0001
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Erscheint auch als : Druck-Ausgabe
• Sach-SW: Literature
• Sach-SW: Literature: history & criticism
• Sach-SW: Literary criticism
• K10plus-PPN: 1897425759
• K10plus-PPN:
  Universitätsbibliothek
• Lokale URL UB: Zum Volltext

Abstract

Through an analysis of ancient garden studies and close readings of major Latin texts from the first centuries BCE and CE, K. Sara Myers examines the function and representation of garden descriptions in the work of a broad range of Roman authors, such as Cicero, Catullus, Vergil, Varro, Horace, Ovid, Petronius, Columella, Statius, and Pliny the Elder and Younger.

Abstract

"Beginning with Cicero and Varro and ending with Statius and Pliny the Younger, this chapter offers a chronological investigation of the ways in which real and literary gardens developed from the first century BCE to the first century CE as a means of elite masculine self-representation and the reactions of elite Roman men to the increased social and cultural power of villa and horti estates and their grounds. Gardens served as powerful symbols of wealth and as creative displays of the cultural aspirations of their owners in ways that challenged traditional definitions of gardens and of Roman manliness. Since these large-scale 'gardens' are primarily associated with leisure (otium), authors are concerned with describing and justifying their activities in these sites as befitting Roman masculine ideals. We can trace a change in attitude towards leisure and the private display of wealth, and consequently gardens, largely attributed to changes in the socio-political circumstances of the Roman elite, in the works of Statius and his contemporary Pliny the Younger, who use laudatory descriptions of extensive villas and grounds as a means of expressing social and literary power"--