Dear Satirists,
For Wednesday, April 22, please do the following:
(1) Read G. B. Conte on Martial, a contemporary of Juvenal and author of epigrams that do much of the same work as Roman satire. Unlike other Conte essays, you can read this one in its entirety; it’s the perfect length, and it doesn’t need to jump around between authors or separate bodies of work. As usual, note anything that resonates with you, so we can discuss it in class.
(2) Read and translate Martial, epigrams 1, 7, and 19 (as numbered in our Cambridge edition). The commentary by Watson & Watson is very generous, even to the point of prefacing each poem with a helpful summary. Let’s see what these poems have to say, as a group, about Martial and his art.
(3) Download, print, and fill in scansion drill 8. This will be our only formal foray into the elegiac couplet. We’ll discuss it in class, and then you can turn it in by email by Friday.
DC
