The Garden of Priapus by Amy Richlin
Statues of the god Priapus stood in Roman gardens to warn potential thieves that the god would rape them if they attempted to steal from him. Amy Richlin argues that the attitude of sexual aggressiveness in defence of a bounded area serves as a model for Roman satire from Lucilius to Juvenal. Using literary, anthropological, psychological, and feminist methodologies, she suggests that aggressive sexual humour reinforces aggressive behaviour on both the individual and societal level, and that Roman satire provides an insight into Roman culture.
'the author is justified in her claim that the material collected here on quite a lavish scale bears on more than simply on literature' PWalcot, Greece and Rome, October 1993
Richlin, Amy: - Amy Richlin is Professor of Classics at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a path-breaking historian of Roman sexuality. From the time of her first book, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (1983), she has searched for the subcultures of muted groups and outgroups outside the literary canon. Her many articles include 'Hijacking the Palladion', 'Not before Homosexuality', and 'Pliny's Brassiere'; in 'Boy-Love and Child-Love' (2015), rethinking Roman pederasty, she argued that the Greco-Roman slave system enabled child sex slavery. Her book Marcus Aurelius in Love (2006) translated the love letters of Cornelius Fronto and his student, the young future emperor. An outspoken feminist, she edited Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (1992) and co-edited Feminist Theory and the Classics (1993); her essays on Roman women's history are collected in Arguments with Silence (2014). Since 2000, she has been working on Roman comedy, and addressed the need to teach about ancient Orientalism in Rome and the Mysterious Orient: Three Plays by Plautus (2005).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780195068733 |
| ISBN 10 | 0195068734 |
| Title | The Garden of Priapus |
| Author | Amy Richlin |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press Inc |
| Year published | 1992-10-15 |
| Number of pages | 352 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |