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Document Type
Book Chapter
Department/Program
Classical Studies
Publication Date
12-2018
Book Title
Complex Inferiorities: The Poetics of the Weaker Voice in Latin Literature
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Editor
Sebastian Matzner and Stephen Harrison
First Page
1
Last Page
19
DOI
https://www.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198814061.003.0012
Abstract
This chapter continues the investigation of rhetorical maneuvers clustering around social and amorous hierarchies in the fraught sphere of sexual agency by studying the trope of the sexually aggressive older female preying on a younger man in Tacitus’ Annals. On the basis of a detailed examination of the portrayal of Messalina and Agrippina, it argues that it is precisely the recognizable rhetoricity and artificiality in the deployment of this trope, here dramatized through rich intertextual echoes and connections (notably Vergil’s Aeneid and Euripides’ Bacchae), which narratively undercuts any unambiguous condemnation of female superiority over male inferiority, disrupts any simple re-assertion of traditional Roman gender hierarchies, and opens up the text to alternative interpretations beyond the reach of the narrator’s authority.
ISBN
9780198814061
Publication Statement
This material was originally published in "Complex Inferiorities: The Poetics of the Weaker Voice in Latin Literature" edited by Sebastian Matzner and Stephen Harrison and has been reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press https://www.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198814061.001.0001 and http://global.oup.com/academic. For permission to reuse this material, please visit http://global.oup.com/academic/rights.
Recommended Citation
Panoussi, V. (2018). From Adultery to Incest: Messalina and Agrippina as Sexual Aggressors in Tacitus’ Annals. Sebastian Matzner and Stephen Harrison (Ed.), Complex Inferiorities: The Poetics of the Weaker Voice in Latin Literature (pp. 1-19). Oxford University Press. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/asbookchapters/142
Included in
Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Classical Literature and Philology Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons
