How can we explain the process by which a literary text refers to another text? For the past decade and a half, intertextuality has been a central concern of scholars and readers of Roman poetry. In Intertextuality and the Reading of Roman Poetry, Lowell Edmunds proceeds from such fundamental concepts as "author," "text," and "reader," which he then applies to passages from Vergil, Horace, Ovid, and Catullus. Edmunds combines close readings of poems with analysis of recent theoretical models to argue that allusion has no linguistic or semiotic basis: there is nothing in addition to the alluding words that causes the allusion or the reference to be made. Intertextuality is a matter of reading.

About the Author
Lowell Edmunds is a professor of classics at Rutgers University. His many books include Approaches to Greek Myth; Oedipus: The Ancient Legend and Its Later Analogues; and Poet, Public, and Performance in Ancient Greece all available in paperback from Johns Hopkins.

Reviews
Studded with striking observations and suggestive formulations. -- Charles Platter Religious Studies Review Lowell Edmunds has written a book that provides what is expected and appreciated in a theoretical study: the scholarship is extensive and well organized into arguments which are themselves descriptive, provocative, challenging, and supported by a close reading of a variety of selections from Catullus, Horace, Vergil, and Ovid. -- David J. Kuyat Bryn Mawr Classical Review For the graduate student and for the consenting Latinist, this is a book which enters a debate with verve and commitment that should provoke yet further discussion. -- Simon Goldhill Classical World



Book Information
ISBN 9780801877414
Author Lowell Edmunds
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 345g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 12mm