The reference to Archaic Roman tragedy in Persius's firs satire

• Autores: Spyridon Tzounakas
• Localización: Antiquité classique, ISSN 0770-2817, Nº. 77, 2008, págs. 91-105
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The parody of Accius and Pacuvius in Persius� first satire (1, 76-78) is spoken by the satirist�s interlocutor, who attacks the roughness of the archaic diction in favour of the smoothness that dominates the neoteric poetry of Persius� day. However, the poet does not defend archaic tragedy. Besides, frequent targets of Persius� literary criticism, such as the high style, the search for divine and artificial inspiration, the motif of the deplorable heroine, the adherence to mythological themes and the slavish mimesis of Greek models, do exist even in archaic tragedy. Consequently, despite its stylistic differences, the particular genre shares remarkable similarities with the neo-Callimachean poetry of the Neronian period. Persius formulates the question of his aduersarius in such a way that these similarities are revealed implicitly and thus the satirist�s condemnation of the poetic model of Accius and Pacuvius appears in harmony with the rest of his literary programme.