CCIV 272: Reading Roman Decadence

objectives and format

schedule

assignments

on-line resources

further reading

Roman Decadence
homepage

MPP's homepage

e-mail MPP

Classics homepage

Wesleyan homepage

ESSAY 2 ASSIGNMENT:
Thematic Analysis

length: 5-7 pages
due: Friday 11/8, in my box by 5:00 p.m.

Read Juvenal Satire 8 (handout) OR Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 14.1 (handout). Based on your earlier readings, both primary and seconday, conduct a close reading of the images and recurring topoi (themes) of decadence Juvenal or Pliny makes use of in this text.

Based on this analysis construct a focused argument in which you use other Roman texts and modern scholarship to illuminate the ways (or even a way) in which decadence works in the Juvenal poem or the Pliny chapter. You do not have to treat the entirety of the piece, nor do you need to make use of every parallel you noticed in your analysis. Just use what is useful and relevant to the thesis you're arguing.