Work in Progress: Literary Revision as Social Performance in Ancient Rome.

From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Slightly rubbed jacket, otherwise very good and clean. / Leicht beriebener Umschlag, sonst sehr gut und sauber. - Work in Progress offers an in-depth study of literary revision among Roman authors at the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Principate. It focuses on Cicero, Horace, Quintilian, Martial, and Pliny the Younger, but also offers discussions of Isocrates, Plato, and Hellenistic poetry. The book�s central argument is that revision made textuality into a medium of social exchange. Revisions were not always made by authors working alone: often, they were the result of conversations between an author and literary contacts. These conversations exemplified a commitment to collective debate and active collaboration. Revision was thus much more than an unavoidable element in literary genesis: it was one way in which authorship became a form of social agency. Consequently, when we think about revision for authors of the late Republic we should not think solely of painstaking attendance to craft aimed exclusively at the perfection of a literary work. Nor should we think of the resulting texts as closed, invariant statements sent from an author to his reader. So long as an author was willing to revise, his text served as a platform around and in which a community came into being. The theories of revision that guide this study are influenced by genetic criticism, which has been successfully applied to the study of revision in modern authors. While many of the tools of analysis applicable to modern authors are not available for ancient authors, Sean Gurd has amassed a surprising number of passages in ancient texts about revision, its importance to the author, and the circle of critics involved in the process of rewriting. - SEAN ALEXANDER GURD is Associate Professor of Classics at Concordia University. ISBN 9780199837519