Juvenal: Satires Book I

Satire was a genre of poetry invented and developed by the Romans. When it came into Juvenal’s hands, he stamped his mark upon it: indignation. His angry voice had an overwhelming influence upon later European satirists and persists in modern forms of satire. In this new commentary, Susanna Morton Braund situates Juvenal within the genre of satire and illuminates his appropriation of the ‘grand style’ of declamatory rhetoric and epic poetry for his indignant persona in Satires 1-5, including the notorious second Satire. The commentary on each of the Satires is followed by an essay which offers an interpretation of the poem, including a synthesis of recent critical thought. These essays, together with the overview in the Introduction, present the first integrated reading of Book I as an organic structure.