The Roman Mistress: Ancient and Modern Representations

by Maria Wyke

Overview

From Latin love poetry's dominating and enslaving beloveds, to modern popular culture's infamous Cleopatras and Messalinas, representations of the Roman mistress (or the mistress of Romans) have brought into question both ancient and modern genders and political systems. The Roman Mistress explores representations of transgressive women in Latin love poetry and British television drama, in Roman historiography and nineteenth-century Italian anthropology, on classical coinage and college websites, as poetic metaphor and in the Hollywood star system. In a highly accessible style, the book makes an important and original contribution simultaneously to feminist scholarship on antiquity, the classical tradition, and cultural studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191541407
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	03/14/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Maria Wyke is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading.

Table of Contents

1. Part 1. Love Poetry2. Written Women: Propertius' scripta puella (2. 10-13)3. The Elegiac Woman at Rome: Propertius Book 44. Reading Female Flesh: Ovid Amores 3. 15. Part 2. Reception6. Meretrix regina: Augustan Cleopatras7. Oriental Vamp; Cleopatra 1910s8. Glamour Girl: Cleopatra 1930s - 1960s9. Meretrix Augusta: Messalina 1870s - 1920s10. Suburban Feminist: Messalina 1930s - 1970s

Editorial Reviews

"Wyke's essays...powerfully demonstrated the artificiality of the elegiac world, its women in particular. Wyke's key insight about love elegy is that...the elegiac woman has everything to do with the construction of a provocative male persona, and very little to do with women per se."—Times Literary Supplement

"The material that Wyke has unearthed...is an extraordinary mixture of kitsch, glamour and classically inspired wit."—Mary Beard, London Review of Books

"It is impossible to represent the complexity and subtleties of Wyke's arguments in a short review, and that is the reason to read her book.... The Roman Mistress is a useful read for anyone who wishes to understand the feminist perspective on Roman elegy.... Wyke's book is essential reading for those who wish to learn how the Classics have been adapted for twentieth and twenty-first century audiences."—New England Classical Journal

From the Publisher