Reading Petronius.

From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Tiny tear at the top of the binding. Otherwise in perfect condition. - Content: This work is in part an extension of the theoretical concerns that informed my previous book, Plautus in Performance (1985). There I was particularly concerned with what performance criticism, which takes into account not only the text of a play but also the conditions of performance and the contribution of both actors and audience to realizing the meaning of the work through performance, could tell us about Plautus�s remarkable style of comedy. An audience-oriented approach to prose fiction, usually referred to as reader-response criticism, attempts similarly to interpret a work, not in the pure isolation of (the now geriatric) New Criticism, but imbedded in the reading process and the reader�s own predilections and knowledge. This book, then, is an attempt to understand the splendidly funny and maddeningly elusive humor of Petronius�s Satyricon, within both its own and our systems of interpretation. That attempt has repeatedly led to the modern battlefields of literary theory and the struggle over what precisely constitutes interpretation. Not a few classicists tend to regard the theory wars as minor disturbances among the vernacular speakers on the limes of the Empire. I hope to show that the questions about meaning and interpretation are essential to the understanding of Petronius�s comic masterpiece, and not simply a modern preoccupation. If so, then the Satyricon should also interest those who work in modern literature and theory, not merely as an early example of this or that technique, but as a vital contribution to the ongoing dialogue. The Satyricon has never lacked for readers since it was rediscovered, though scholars and serious students of literature have not always been among them. In that persistent readership lies my hope that the customary, though often forlorn-sounding, wish that a work of scholarship on a classical text will appeal to the increasingly mythical �general reader� is not in this case in vain. Any failure on that count is obviously mine alone. Various audiences and readers have helped me think through the problems here discussed. I am particularly grateful to Froma Zeitlin for her criticisms of an earlier version of the first part, and to Judith Hallett and James Tatum for their most helpful comments on the whole manuscript. Portions of chapter IX appeared in Ramus 16 (1987): 165-76, and I am grateful to the editor, A. J. Boyle, for permission to reproduce them here. The staffs of three computer centers (at Princeton University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Konstanz) have helped me shuttle this manuscript back and forth across continent and ocean with wonderful grace and kindness. I am particularly grateful to Karl Geiger at USC, and to Drew Keller of Princeton�s Department of Classics, who rescued me from many a near-disaster. I am also deeply grateful to my father for help in reading proofs. Such a work as this is made possible only by the leisure of the theoried class, and for that leisure I have many to thank: the ACLS, for a fellowship in 1984-85, with which I began this work; USC, for a leave of absence and a later partial sabbatical; the Department of Classics at Princeton, which welcomed me back as visiting fellow; the Center for Hellenic Studies, whose fellowship in 1987-88 allowed me to work surreptitiously on this project as well; and the University of Konstanz and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, for a splendid year in Germany, during which I was able to make final revisions of the manuscript. No book could repay the debt of gratitude I owe to those who taught me Latin and Greek and opened the world of the classics to me. I hope the dedicatees will accept this work, not for what it is, but for what it tries to be. I thank them all for what they have shared with me, and it is a great sorrow that I can offer this only to the memory of my advisor at Princeton, Art Hanson. ISBN 9780801839849