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Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature

by Denis Feeney

Harvard University Press, 2016
Paper: 978-0-674-98658-9 | eISBN: 978-0-674-49602-6 | Cloth: 978-0-674-05523-0
Library of Congress Classification PA3010.F55 2016
Dewey Decimal Classification 870.9001

ABOUT THIS BOOK | REVIEWS | TOC

ABOUT THIS BOOK

A History Today Best Book of the Year
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year

Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, Horace, and other authors of ancient Rome are so firmly established in the Western canon today that the birth of Latin literature seems inevitable. Yet, Denis Feeney boldly argues, the beginnings of Latin literature were anything but inevitable. The cultural flourishing that in time produced the Aeneid, the Metamorphoses, and other Latin classics was one of the strangest events in history.

“Feeney is to be congratulated on his willingness to put Roman literary history in a big comparative context…It is a powerful testimony to the importance of Denis Feeney’s work that the old chestnuts of classical literary history—how the Romans got themselves Hellenized, and whether those jack-booted thugs felt anxiously belated or smugly domineering in their appropriation of Greek culture for their own purposes—feel fresh and urgent again.”
—Emily Wilson, Times Literary Supplement

“[Feeney’s] bold theme and vigorous writing render Beyond Greek of interest to anyone intrigued by the history and literature of the classical world.”
—The Economist

REVIEWS

A magisterial and innovative study of the beginnings of Latin literature. It is sure to get noticed, to provoke, and to rankle. It will be the standard, go-to book on the topic for many years to come. Feeney does not hold back.
-- Kirk Freudenburg, Yale University

By putting Roman literature into a global context, Denis Feeney shows that the Romans, far from being cultural imitators, were actually the innovators of a new form of cultural transmission. This is the study of world literature at its finest.
-- Martin Puchner, Harvard University

Beyond Greek is a string of revelations about how the Romans busied themselves building a new literature for their new position on the world stage. It takes all the familiar characterizations of ancient Roman literature—as parvenu, as derivative, as a series of ham-handed imitations of a superior culture—and turns them inside-out in some wonderfully thoughtful ways.
-- Steve Donoghue Open Letters Monthly

[Feeney’s] bold theme and vigorous writing render Beyond Greek of interest to anyone intrigued by the history and literature of the classical world.
-- The Economist

Feeney is to be congratulated on his willingness to put Roman literary history in a big comparative context… It is a powerful testimony to the importance of Denis Feeney’s work that the old chestnuts of classical literary history—how the Romans got themselves Hellenized, and whether those jack-booted thugs felt anxiously belated or smugly domineering in their appropriation of Greek culture for their own purposes—feel fresh and urgent again.
-- Emily Wilson Times Literary Supplement

Manages to make strange an entire narrative of Western literature. It takes an origin myth accepted as logical, ‘the creation of a Roman literature on Greek models,’ and through its patient, stylish, precise investigation demonstrates how in fact this was ‘one of the strangest and most unlikely events in Mediterranean history,’ a phenomenon of pure contingency.
-- Adam Thirlwell Times Literary Supplement

Formidably learned, but at the same time an exceptionally good read…Feeney shows mid-third century BC Romans undertaking a deliberate project of refashioning their world within international cultural networks. In so doing, he illustrates the value of cultural openness and multilingualism and the role of ‘cultural brokers.’ Committed supporters of an international outlook will find much of relevance here.
-- Christopher Smith History Today

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title

Dedication

Contents

Preface

Introduction

The Contingency of Latin Literature

Engaging with “Hellenization”

Before and After 240

The Strangeness of Translation

The Case of Ptolemaic Alexandria

Two Ptolemaic “Exceptions”

The Variability of Translation into Greek

Ranges of Possibilities

Translating Is Not Interpreting

What Does Not Get Translated

Not the “Faithful Interpreter”

The Bilingual Classroom

The Originality of Translation

Sameness and Difference

Inside the Intercultural Space

L1 and L2

A Literary Language for Rome

“UP” and “DOWN”

A Bilingual Governing Élite

Chapter 4. Middle Grounds, Zones of Contact

Greek Drama, from Magna Graecia to Central Italy

The New Ludi Scaenici of 364

On the Roman Stage, 364–241

A New Kind of Fidelity

From Koinē to Imperium

Accessing the Canon

The Sicilian Connection

An International Festival

Swimming with, and against, the Mainstream of Hellenism

Acting Greek

The Games of Anicius: A Road Not Taken?

Spectacles in International Dialogue

Chapter 6. A Literature in the Latin Language

What Does It Mean to Speak of “Latin Literature”?

Writing within the Frameworks of Hellenistic Literary Culture

The Development of a Second-Order Institution of Criticism

A Roman Literary Tradition

Remakes, Sequels, and New Departures

Beyond the Translation Project

Audiences

New Horizons

The New Professionals

Texts in Circulation

An Empire of Writing

Chapter 8. Acts of Comparison

Comparative Cases of Other Vernacular Literatures

Across the Watershed

Comparing Greek and Roman Song Cultures

A Comparison Test-Case: Greek and Roman Songs for the Gods

Elaboration of Cultic Song: A Carmen for Juno

Inventing Vernacular Literatures

Conclusion: Joining the Network

Webs of History and Myth

The New Systematization

A Roman Dimension to the System

Notes

References

Index

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