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Epigrams: With Parallel Latin Text
Epigrams: With Parallel Latin Text

Epigrams: With Parallel Latin Text

Author: 
Martial; Gideon Nisbet
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  • Martial's epigrams target every level of Roman society, from slave to aristocrat. This newly translated selection is as punchy and close to the knuckle as the originals.
  • One of only two substantial modern translations since 1972, and the first by a classicist. Witty and accurate prose translations convey incidental detail and the poet's consummate comic timing.
  • The first translation to bring out the literariness of Martial, to show how his books and poems interconnect. The selection illustrates the range and diversity of Martial's style and topics.
  • Includes facing Latin text.
  • The Introduction considers Martial's life and times, his importance for the genre, and the thematic structure of the original books.
  • Notes identify Martial's literary and mythic allusions, explain real-world contexts, and show the interaction of different books and poems.

  
'If you're one of those terribly serious readers, now is a good time to leave.'

The poet we call Martial, Marcus Valerius Martialis, lived by his wits in first-century Rome. Pounding the mean streets of the Empire's capital, he takes apart the pretensions, addictions, and cruelties of its inhabitants with perfect comic timing and killer punchlines. Social climbers and sex-offenders, rogue traders and two-faced preachers - all are subject to his forensic annihilations and often foul-mouthed verses. Packed with incident and detail, Martial's epigrams bring Rome vividly to life in all its variety; biting satire rubs alongside tender friendship, lust for life beside sorrow for loss. Gossipy, clever, and above all entertaining, they express amusement as much as indignation at the vices they expose. 

This selection brings Martial to a twenty-first century readership in a prose translation that pulls no punches and presents him in all his moods. It establishes his originality as a literary author, and the significance of his achievement as the poet who conquered epigram for Rome.

Index: 

Introduction
Note on the Text and Translation
Select Bibliography
Chronology
EPIGRAMS
LIBER SPECTACULORUM / BOOK OF SHOWS
BOOK 1
BOOK 2
BOOK 3
BOOK 4
BOOK 5
BOOK 6
BOOK 7
BOOK 8
BOOK 9
BOOK 10
BOOK 11
BOOK 12
XENIA / PARTY FAVOURS
APOPHORETA / DOGGY-BAGS
Explanatory Notes
Index

About the author: 

Martial
Gideon Nisbet, Reader in Classics, University of Birmingham
 
Gideon Nisbet has taught and researched the classical world and its reception at the Universities of Glasgow, Reading, Warwick, and Oxford, and is an expert in ancient epigram. His publications includes Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's Forgotten Rivals (OUP, 2003), Greek Epigram in Reception (OUP, 2013) and the Greece and Rome New Survey, Epigram (CUP, 2010).

"Martial is an epigrammatist of unmatched range and brilliance. Treating life, society and human foibles with coruscating wit, he mixes vicious abuse, frequently sexual, of individuals with biting satire on human weakness and lyrical reflections on Rome, friendship and country life. In his extremely useful edition Gideon Nisbet selects over 300 of his subject's c. 1600 poems, doing full justice to Martial's range." - Peter Jones, Classics for All

"This translation is offering not only a reasonably comprehensive view of Martial's literary universe, but also a pleasant experience. Gideon Nisbet's version of Martial's Rome and Martial's world is enjoyable and lively." - Carmen Fenechiu, Journal of Ancient History and Archeology

Product details

ISBN : 9780199645459

Author: 
Martial; Gideon Nisbet
Pages
336 Pages
Format
Paperback
Size
124 x 193 mm
Pub date
Jun 2015
Series
Oxford World's Classics
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Epigrams: With Parallel Latin Text

Epigrams: With Parallel Latin Text

Epigrams: With Parallel Latin Text