Gender and Rhetoric: Producing Manhood in the Schools†

INCREDVLVS ODI: HORACE AND THE SUBLITERARY AESTHETIC OF THE AUGUSTAN STAGE

“…Just as Quintilian demarcates oratorical legitimacy in the first century CE by posting the unruly, effeminised bodies of the actor and the dancer at its outermost edges, 87 Horace circumscribes tragic decorum by disengaging it from the wayward practices of lowbrow theatrical attractions. 88 If we were to decode the passage of the Ars 87 On the problematic boundary between Roman rhetoric and the stage see (among a voluminous bibliography) the inspiring discussions of Richlin (1997), Gunderson (1998) and Fantham (2002). 88 Cf.…”

Studies of Ancient Masculinity

“…Much is made of gestures and the use of the voice: a constant refrain, implicit and explicit, is that gestures and voice are to be carefully cultivated so as to convey a natural masculinity. The irony of embracing artifice to reveal a natural manhood was productive of anxiety; was the elite man a little too much of an actor (Gleason 1995, Richlin 1997, Gunderson 2000, Connolly 2003)? Quintilian, the author of the magisterial rhetorical treatise of the late first century CE, Institutio oratoria, nicely encapsulates the tension between past and present and the need for the good man to be careful of the artifice that he nonetheless must affect:…”

“…Gunderson's two monographs (2000Gunderson's two monographs ( , 2003 are challenging but are models of readings that reveal hidden motivations and fixations. Richlin (1997) provides an excellent account of the connection between Roman manhood and education; Williams (1999Williams ( , 2010 discusses Roman masculinity and homosexual behavior across a wide array of Latin and Greek sources. Wray (2001) provides an agile discussion of manhood in the important poet of the late republic, Catullus.…”

Feminist Theory

“…On the artistic preoccupation with grotesque entities-a preoccupation seen as a compensatory mechanism for Roman anxieties-consult Barton (1993, 85-175); for the employment of outlandishness as a coherent ingredient in the rhetorical and ideological design of imperial biography, see Mader 2005. 23 The prime venue for proper display of masculinity was oratory, where rigorous conventions of authoritative posture, dress, gesture, and speech were observed; consult Richlin 1997 andGunderson 2000. On the political message conveyed by the deliberate violation of such conventions, see Corbeill 2004, 133-7. …”