Roman Verse Satires

Spleen and Ideal

Godwin, John

The Romans invented ‘satire’ as a separate genre and used it both for personal invective and as a literary and philosophical mode of expression. In the hands of their greatest writers, mockery and critique of society becomes an artform which later ages have imitated but not equalled. Roman Verse Satires examines the tradition of hexameter verse satires as practised by Ennius, Lucilius, Horace, Persius and Juvenal.