Name: MARIHÁ BARBOSA E CASTRO

Publication date: 18/02/2020
Advisor:

Name	Role
LENI RIBEIRO LEITE	Advisor *

Examining board:

Name	Role
LENI RIBEIRO LEITE	Advisor *
RAIMUNDO NONATO BARBOSA DE CARVALHO	Internal Examiner *
WILBERTH CLAYTHON FERREIRA SALGUEIRO	Internal Alternate *

Summary: Aulus Persius Flaccus’ Satires are usually described as one of the most enigmatic works of Roman literature. Tradition has read, on a regular basis, the complexity of its poems as a strategy to covertly criticize Nero’s government. The hypothesis that the satires address criticism to the princeps is quite likely, as many of the vices at which the satirical persona aims are pointed out by Tacitus in his narrative on Nero. However, as we are aware that this reading is mostly based on paratexts such as the Vita Persii, probably written in the 4th century, and that Tacitus’ testimonial is circumscribed in the political context of
Flavian dynasty, we believe that one cannot assure Persius had in fact targeted the princeps in his verses. Tradition has also explained its obscurity as resulting from its young author’s inaptitude, even though the texts that are closer to the first satires’ circulation context do not actually mention such obscurity as they, otherwise, call attention to the poet’s popularity. Our hypothesis is one of a programmatic obscurity in Persius, although the loss of important references to the poems’ comprehension could have intensified it, which mostly takes place due to the dense metaphors that one can find throughout his work. Among the author’s metaphors, the ones that are associated with the human body and its physiological functions are of great importance, and those are usually built from the appropriation of the medical discourse by the stoic philosophical discourse. This work’s corpus is compounded by a set of metaphors that go beyond their everyday use and signal the poet’s inventiveness towards the creation of new meanings. Persius’ metaphors detach from Aristotelian prescriptions, echoed by Roman authors such as Quintillanus and Cicero, on the proper use of figures. Persius’ style is also not suitable to what one can expect from a stoic author, for whom a simple and less ornate style would be
the ideal. We defend that Persius has achieved a historical revolution in the use of metaphors, and that he moves away from the common place that associates literature to pleasure. In his satires, medical and moral conditions mingle, and the narrative of the body’s sickening turns into a metaphor for the degeneration of the soul. The Satires can be interpreted, therefore, as a medicine that is offered to readers and listeners who seek the cure for their vices through the stoic doctrine, and who are willing to face the bitter curing
process that is offered by Persius through his enigmatic verses.
Keywords: Human body metaphors. Medical metaphors. Stoicism. Roman satire. Aulus Persius Flaccus.

Access to document