Unspoken Rome

Showcases innovative approaches to Latin literature by reading textual absence as a generative force for literary interpretation and reception. Includes chapters by a wide range of scholars, covering some of the main authors of the Latin literary tradition, often in dialogue with modern literature and philosophy.

Introduction Tom Geue and Elena Giusti; Part I. Absence in Text: 1. Catullus' Sapphic lacuna: A Palimpsest of Absences and Presences Ábel Tamás; 2. Speaking Aposiopeseis: The (Generic) Sound of Silence in Statius' Thebaid Stefano Briguglio; 3. Allegorical Absences: Virgil, Ovid, Prudentius and Claudian Philip Hardie; 4. Tamen Apsentes Prosunt Pro Praesentibus: Proxied Absences and Roman Comedy Giuseppe Pezzini; 5. Absence Left Wanting: The Groove in Ovid's Remedia Victoria Rimell; 6. The Gaze on the Void: Hermeneutic Responses to Dido's First Appearance Viola Starnone; Part II. Absence in Context: 7. Speaking Silence in Cicero's Brutus and Tacitus' Dialogus de Oratoribus Kathrin Winter; 8. Et Sine Auctore Notissimi Uersus: Unauthored Poetry and Rome's Authoritative Turn Barbara Del Giovane; 9. Looking for the Emperor in Seneca's Letters Catharine Edwards; 10. Marcus Aurelius: Medi()ations not Medi(c)ations John Henderson; 11. Lost in Germania: The Absence of History in Tacitus' Ethnography James Mcnamara; 12. Conspicuous Absence: Tacitus' de Re Publica Ellen O'gorman; Part III. Going Beyond: 13. The Slave, Between Absence and Presence William Fitzgerald; 14. In Search of the Lost City: The Enduring Absence of Pompeii Joanna Paul; 15. Omnibus Umbra Locis Adero: Elena Ferrante and the Poetics of Absence Francesca Bellei; 16. The Philology of Grief: Catullus 101 and Anne Carson's Nox Erik Fredericksen; 17. Absence, Metaphysically Speaking: From Reception to Instauration? Duncan Kennedy; 18. Afterword: Lights Out Emily Gowers.