Selected Epigrams

by Martial, Susan McLean (Translator), Marc Kleijwegt (Introduction)

Overview

This lively translation accurately captures the wit and uncensored bawdiness of the epigrams of Martial, who satirized Roman society, both high and low, in the first century CE. His pithy little poems amuse, but also offer vivid insight into the world of patrons and clients, doctors and lawyers, prostitutes, slaves, and social climbers in ancient Rome. The selections cover nearly a third of Martial's 1,500 or so epigrams, augmented by an introduction by historian Marc Kleijwegt and informative notes on literary allusion and wordplay by translator Susan McLean.

Finalist, Literary Translation Award, PEN Center USA

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299301743
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	12/03/2014
Series:	Wisconsin Studies in Classics
Edition description:	1
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Marcus Valerius Martialis, or Martial (ca. 40-104 CE), made his way to Rome from Iberia (now Spain) and won renown across the Empire for his humorous epigrams. Susan McLean is a professor of English at Southwest Minnesota State University. She won the 2014 Donald Justice Poetry Prize for a collection of her own poems, The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and in 2009 her collection The Best Disguise won the Richard Wilbur Award.

Table of Contents

Foreword                                 
            Marc Kleijwegt
A Note on the Translation                              
 
Book One                               
Book Two                               
Book Three                            
Book Four                               
Book Five                               
Book Six                                 
Book Seven                             
Book Eight                             
Book Nine                              
Book Ten                               
Book Eleven                           
Book Twelve                          
 
Notes                          
Works Cited

Editorial Reviews

…a new edition with delightfully snarky translations by Susan McLean…An astute social observer and a decent armchair psychologist, [Martial] was skilled at dissecting hypocrisy, puncturing braggadocio and deflating snobbery…McLean has an excellent feel for joke rhythms and punch lines. I also appreciate her efforts, as she explains in her preface, to "maintain the level of obscenity of Martial's language." Thus there are no "pokers" here, as there are in the old Loeb editions; McLean calls a penis a penis, or then some, which I suspect is essential to Martial's effect.

The New York Times Book Review - Bruce Handy

"But you know who I recently learned makes me laugh as hard as anyone in print? Martial, the ancient Roman poet and satirist--an actual 2,000-year-old man and still funny! . . . I had never read Martial until I picked up his Selected Epigrams in a new edition with delightfully snarky translations by Susan McLean, a poet herself. . . . [Martial] would have been great on Twitter, and rappers might well appreciate his flair for the corrosive put-down."--New York Times Book Review

"The Roman satirist Martial hasn't had a good deal hitherto from his translators. An older generation suppressed his hilarious obscenities, while today it's his racism, sexism, class prejudice, and callousness towards the ugly, deformed, or slaves (no poet was ever less P.C. than Martial) that cause offense. Now Susan McLean, a witty and metrically skillful poet in her own right, has seen her opportunity in Martial. Her rhymed quatrains are as sharp and pointed as Martial's own elegiacs; the Roman's insults and obscenities are preserved with style and relish. Martial has at last found a translator who not only possesses all the disparate skills needed for the job, but has clearly enjoyed herself hugely while doing it."--Peter Green, translator of Juvenal's Satires


"A neatly chosen, crisply rhymed selection of [Martial's] most pungent sallies; perfect bedtime reading."--Books of the Year, Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher