LATN306

In the early second century CE, the poet Juvenal composed his Satires, a series of bitterly critical verses railing against the supposed vices of contemporary Roman society. These poems, which are simultaneously deeply conservative and jarringly obscene, comment upon gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity, and politics in often enigmatic ways. Over the course of the semester, we will explore the strange mixture of aggression, self-deprecation, righteousness, and hypocrisy that characterizes Juvenal's poetry. Students will develop their facility with the Latin language, while also familiarizing themselves with the literary, social, and political context in which Juvenal wrote. Students will utilize these linguistic and analytical skills to produce well-argued papers by the end of the semester.