The Neronian Grotesque
The Neronian Grotesque

Author: Scott Weiss

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-11-13

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1000988759

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During the reign of Nero, Roman culture produced some of its most spectacular works of art and literature, and some of its strangest. This study explores these effects across textual and visual media in an integrated way. Weiss' analysis allows for appreciation of the shared strategies of composition, overlaps between literary and visual rhetoric, the role of context in shaping the reception of a work, and the authority of the reader/viewer to generate meaning. The volume offers an account of Roman visual-literary interactions in the mid-first century ᴄᴇ that considers these dynamics as informing broad cultural phenomena. The results reveal features pervasive in a literary and artistic culture invested in exploring the edges of expression. The Neronian Grotesque is a fascinating study on the literary and artistic production in the Neronian period, and has wider implications for anyone working in the field of Roman cultural history and visual studies more broadly.

The Neronian Grotesque
The Neronian Grotesque

Author: SCOTT. WEISS

Publisher: Image, Text, and Culture in Classical Antiquity

Published: 2023-11-07

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780367478193

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During the reign of Nero, Roman culture produced some of its most spectacular works of art and literature, and some of its strangest. This study explores these effects across textual and visual media in an integrated way. Weiss' analysis allows for appreciation of the shared strategies of composition, overlaps between literary and visual rhetoric, the role of context in shaping the reception of a work, and the authority of the reader/viewer to generate meaning. The volume offers an account of Roman visual-literary interactions in the mid-first century ᴄᴇ that considers these dynamics as informing broad cultural phenomena. The results reveal features pervasive in a literary and artistic culture invested in exploring the edges of expression. The Neronian Grotesque is a fascinating study on the literary and artistic production in the Neronian period, and has wider implications for anyone working in the field of Roman cultural history and visual studies more broadly.

Birth of the Grotesque
Birth of the Grotesque

Author: Scott Weiss

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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This dissertation argues for shared dynamics within visual and literary culture in the Neronian period. By analyzing literary texts and Fourth Style wall paintings, my project reveals overlapping aesthetics in different media through an exploration of three essential themes: (1) the conflation of fantasy and reality, (2) the prevalence of hybrid forms, and (3) a style that accentuates ornament. In these areas, diverse cultural artifacts emerge as participants in a collective mode of display. As a hermeneutic framework for making these connections, I employ theories of the grotesque, a concept rooted in the Renaissance reception of Nero's Domus Aurea. Around 1480, antiquarians uncovered the subterranean ruins of the structure, and in these "grottoes" they marveled at wall paintings they named grottesche. Artists such as Pinturicchio and Raphael emulated these ancient forms to create a new artistic style, which over the centuries became broadly associated with the strange and fantastic as it developed into what we now call the grotesque. In my work, I define the grotesque as a mode of representation that disrupts normative ways of comprehending the world. It challenges preconceived notions about the stability of natural forms and provides alternative strategies for representing reality. By considering the grotesque, I help explain the Neronian predilection for fanciful and sometimes repulsive imagery as a desire to challenge expectations and to expand aesthetic limits.

A Companion to the Neronian Age
A Companion to the Neronian Age

Author: Emma Buckley

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-05-03

Total Pages: 519

ISBN-13: 1118316533

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An authoritative overview and helpful resource for students and scholars of Roman history and Latin literature during the reign of Nero. The first book of its kind to treat this era, which has gained in popularity in recent years Makes much important research available in English for the first time Features a balance of new research with established critical lines Offers an unusual breadth and range of material, including substantial treatments of politics, administration, the imperial court, art, archaeology, literature and reception studies Includes a mix of established scholars and groundbreaking new voices Includes detailed maps and illustrations

The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Nero
The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Nero

Author: Shadi Bartsch

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-11-09

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 1107052203

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A lively and accessible guide to the rich literary, philosophical and artistic achievements of the notorious age of Nero.

The Early Modern Grotesque
The Early Modern Grotesque

Author: Liam Semler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-26

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 0429684789

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The Early Modern Grotesque: English Sources and Documents 1500-1700 offers readers a large and fully annotated collection of primary source texts addressing the grotesque in the English Renaissance. The sources are arranged chronologically in 120 numbered items with accompanying explanatory Notes. Each Note provides clarification of difficult terms in the source text, locating it in the context of early modern English and Continental discourses on the grotesque. The Notes also direct readers to further English sources and relevant modern scholarship. This volume includes a detailed introduction surveying the vocabulary, form and meaning of the grotesque from its arrival as a word, concept and aesthetic in 16th century England to its early maturity in the 18th century. The Introduction, Items and Notes, complemented by illustrations and a comprehensive bibliography, provide an unprecedented view of the evolving complexity and diversity of the early modern English grotesque. While giving due credit to Wolfgang Kayser and Mikhail Bakhtin as masters of grotesque theory, this ground-breaking book aims to provoke new, evidence-based approaches to understanding the specifically English grotesque. The textual archive from 1500-1700 is a rich and intriguing record that offers much to interested readers and researchers in the fields of literary studies, theatre studies and art history.

The Great Fire of Rome
The Great Fire of Rome

Author: Joseph J. Walsh

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 109

ISBN-13: 1421433729

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A thrilling and momentous account of the Great Fire of Rome and how a modern city arose from its embers. Peril was everywhere in ancient Rome, but the Great Fire of 64 CE was unlike anything the city had ever experienced. No building, no neighborhood, no person was safe from conflagration. When the fire finally subsided—after burning for nine days straight—vast swaths of Rome were in ruins. The greatest city of the ancient world had endured its greatest blow. In The Great Fire of Rome, Joseph J. Walsh tells the true story of this deadly episode in Rome's history. He explains why Rome was such a vulnerable tinderbox, outlines the difficulties of life in that exciting and dangerous city, and recounts the fire's aftermath and legacy—a legacy that includes the transformation of much of ancient Rome into a modern city. Situating the fire within the context of other perils that residents of Rome faced, including frequent flooding, pollution, crime, and dangerously shoddy construction, he highlights the firefighting technology of the period and examines the ways in which the city's architecture and planning contributed to the severity of the blaze. Introducing readers to the grim realities of life in that overwhelming and overwhelmed city while chronicling its later glories, The Great Fire of Rome is grounded in the latest scholarship on fire analysis and forensics. Walsh's multifaceted analysis, balanced insights, and concise, accessible prose make this book a versatile teaching tool. Readers interested in ancient (and modern) Rome, urban life, and civic disasters, among other things, will be fascinated by this book.

Grotesque
Grotesque

Author: Justin Edwards

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-29

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1134105983

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Grotesque provides an invaluable and accessible guide to the use (and abuse) of this complex literary term. Justin D. Edwards and Rune Graulund explore the influence of the grotesque on cultural forms throughout history, with particular focus on its representation in literature, visual art and film. The book: presents a history of the literary grotesque from Classical writing to the present examines theoretical debates around the term in their historical and cultural contexts introduce readers to key writers and artists of the grotesque, from Homer to Rabelais, Shakespeare, Carson McCullers and David Cronenberg analyses key terms such as disharmony, deformed and distorted bodies, misfits and freaks explores the grotesque in relation to queer theory, post-colonialism and the carnivalesque. Grotesque presents readers with an original and distinctive overview of this vital genre and is an essential guide for students of literature, art history and film studies.

Staging the Savage God
Staging the Savage God

Author: Ralf Remshardt

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2016-08-16

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0809388782

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In this broadly conceived study, Ralf Remshardt delineates the theatre’s deep connection with the grotesque and traces the historically extensive and theoretically intensive relationship between performance and its “other,” the grotesque. Staging the Savage God: The Grotesque in Performance examines the aesthetic complicity shared by the two in both art and theatre and presents a general theory of the grotesque. Performing the grotesque is both a challenge to a culture’s order and the affirmation of certain ethical principles that it recognizes as its own. Remshardt investigates the aesthetics and ideology of grotesque theatre from antiquity—in works such as The Bacchae and Thyestes—to modernity—in Ubu Roi and Hamletmachine—and opens up new critical possibilities for the analysis of both classical and avant-gardetheatre. Divided into three sections, Staging the Savage God first interrogates the grotesque as primarily a visual artistic and theatrical mode and then inventories various critical approaches to the grotesque, establishing the outlines of a theory with regard to drama. In the most extensive part of the study, Remshardt shifts his emphasis to the theatre of the grotesque, from self-consuming tragedies and the modernist trope of the artificial human figure to the characterology of the grotesque. Remshardt’s conclusion takes bold steps toward unraveling the paradox inherent in the grotesque theatre. Written in an engaging style and aided by nine illustrations, Staging the Savage God is a comprehensive and rigorous study that incorporates critical approaches from disciplines such as philosophy, psychoanalysis, art history, literature, and theatre to fully investigate the historical function of the grotesque in performance.

Seneca in Performance
Seneca in Performance

Author: George W.M. Harrison

Publisher: Classical Press of Wales

Published: 2000-12-31

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1914535189

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The plays of Seneca the Younger, minister and philosopher under Nero, are today increasingly studied, appreciated and performed. Here, in twelve new papers from a distinguished international cast, scholars explore established questions, such as whether the plays were written for the stage, and newer topics such as the playwright's subtleties of characterisation, his relation to contemporary Roman spectacle and art - and the problems arising in translating him to modern text or stage.