Cicero Catullus And The Language Of Social Performance

Krostenko (classics, U. of Chicago) explores charm, wit, elegance, and style in Roman literature of the late Republic by tracking the origins, development, and use of the terms that described them, which he calls "the language of social performance." His sociolinguistic approach is to describe the relationship between the words themselves and the ideological categories they expressed. Included in his analysis are the growth of elite aestheticism, the Latin rhetorical tradition, performance in Cicero and Catullus, and the rise of Octavian and the death of the language of social performance. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR.