Uncovering Anna Perenna: A Focused Study of Roman Myth and Culture

by Gwynaeth McIntyre (Editor), Sarah McCallum (Editor)

Overview

The figure of Anna Perenna embodies the complexity and richness of the Roman mythological tradition. In exploring Anna Perenna, the contributors apply different perspectives and critical methods to an array of compelling evidence drawn from central texts, monuments, coins, and inscriptions that encapsulate Rome's shifting artistic and political landscape. As a collection, Uncovering Anna Perenna provides a unique examination that represents the interdisciplinary intersection between Roman literature, history, and culture.

The assembled chapters offer thought-provoking and insightful discussions written by specialists in Roman myth and religion, literary studies, and ancient history. A convergence of different perspectives within the collection, including comparative literature, gender and sexuality, literary criticism, and reception, results in a rich and varied investigation. Organized into four parts, the volume explores Anna along four conceptual lines: her liminal nature as a Carthaginian figure coopted into Rome's literary, mythological, and artistic heritage; her capacity as a Roman goddess and nymph; her political and cultural associations with plebeian and populist ideology; and her intriguing influence on James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350048430
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/24/2019
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Gwynaeth McIntyre is Lecturer at University of Otago, New Zealand. Her research focuses on political, social, and religious history of Rome and the ways in which mythology and religion define particular communities.

Sarah McCallum is an Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Arizona, USA. Her research focuses on Greek and Roman language and literature, particularly epic, elegiac, and pastoral poetry.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Preface viii

Acknowledgements x

List of Abbreviations xi

Notes on Contributors xiii

Introduction: Anna and the Plebs: A Synthesis of Primary Evidence T.P. Wiseman 1

From Carthage to Rome

1 Rivalry and Revelation: Ovid's Elegiac Revision of Virgilian Allusion Sarah McCollum 19

2 Calendar Girl: Anna Perenna Between the Fasti and the Punica James S. McIntyre 37

3 Not Just Another Fertility Goddess: Searching for Anna in Art Gwynaeth McIntyre 54

Anna and Her Nymphs

4 Anna, Water and Her Imminent Deification in Aeneid 4 David J. Wright 71

5 How to Become a Hero: Gendering the Apotheosis of Ovid's Anna Perenna A. Everett Beek 83

6 Instability and Permanence in Ceremonial Epigraphy: The Example of Anna Perenna Anna Blennow 94

Champion of the Plebs

7 Ovid's Anna Perenna and the Coin of Gains Annius Teresa Ramsby 113

8 Infiltrating Julian History: Anna Perenna at Lavinium and Bovillae Carole Newlands 125

The Afterlife of Anna Perenna

9 Riverrun: Channelling Anna Perenna in Finnegans Wake Justin Hudak 149

Notes 163

Bibliography 216

Index Locorum 231

General Index 235

Editorial Reviews

This is the first volume-length, comprehensive study of Anna Perenna, a Roman divinity with a complex identity and firm yet insufficiently defined impact on the Roman civic and cultural experience. The individual studies comprising the book offer expert interpretations of the various manifestations in literature, archaeology and material culture in general, of a Roman goddess whose fluid identity parallels Rome's ever evolving cultural and political experience.

From the Publisher