George’s Categorised Bibliography

So for my categorized bibliography there were three major categories that I think things fit into:

1. Texts on homosexuality in the period the Priapea come from.
2. Texts on homosexual themes in/surrounding the Priapea.
3. Texts on the Priapea which do not necessarily talk about homosexuality.

1. Texts on homosexuality and related subject areas in the period the Priapea come from.

• Williams, Craig A. 2010. Roman homosexuality. 2d ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press

– This text was extremely useful for an overview on Roman ideas about homosexuality. A conglomeration of previous sources that have existed, as well as research drawn directly from ancient texts themselves, this text is renowned for being one of the greatest sources of information about Roman homosexuality. Certain chapters were more or less relevant to my thesis, but almost all were relevant to the main themes I am hoping to incorporate.  The most relevant chapter was chapter 4, “Effeminacy and Masculinity”. This chapter was particularly helpful as it has enabled me to understand more about the concept of masculinity, which I have identified as a key point within my thesis. The text is clearly aimed at an audience with some prior knowledge of Roman texts, but does not presuppose previous knowledge of Roman homosexuality. A new subject to me within the book was chapter 2 on “Greece and Rome”. I had previously learned a little about Roman homosexuality, but had no example to which I could compare it, so having this chapter was invaluable in widening my scope of knowledge. This text alone is enough to give me a good understanding of the social context of homosexuality in the time of the Priapea, and I believe it will work well with other more focused resources to help me apply this knowledge specifically to the Priapea.

• Dutsch, Dorota; Suter, Ann. 2015 Ancient Obscenities: Their Nature and Use in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472119646

– The content of this paper is fairly self-explanatory, in that it is about the different words that were considered obscenities in the ancient world. This is helpful in understanding more the language of the Priapea, and the different connotations of them, as well as the connotations of their use in general.

• Cantarella, Eva. 2002. Bisexuality in the Ancient World. United Kingdom, Yale University Press.

– Like Williams’ Roman Homosexuality, this is a great overview of male sexuality in the ancient world. It talks about the flexibility of sexual attraction, as well as some of the ramifications of male on male desire.

• Fletcher, K. F. B. 2017. Catullus’ ‘ATM’: The Word Order of Carmen 16.1 and the Roman Hierarchy of Sexual Humiliation. Classical Philology 112, no. 4: 487-492

– This paper talks about the pairing of ‘pedicabo’ and ‘irrumabo’ in Catullus 16, and compares this to the usage of it in the Priapea. It makes an interesting argument about the significance of the word order, in the spreading and contact with faecal matter.

• Adams, J. N. 1990. The Latin Sexual Vocabulary. JHU Press.

– This book was really useful for helping with the various words used in the poems for the different sexual acts, as well as the different words for sexual organs and orifices.

• Richlin, A. 1978. Sexual Terms and Themes in Roman Satire and Related Genres. Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University.

2. Texts on homosexual themes in/surrounding the Priapea.

• Richlin, Amy. 1992. The garden of Priapus: Sexuality and aggression in Roman humor. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press-

– This books deal principally with the humorous interpretation of sexual violence in Ancient Rome. It brings in multiple examples from authors such as Ovid and Catullus to show the way in which the Roman audience thought about sexual violence, particularly in ‘unnatural’ circumstances. Particularly important to me is the discussion of Priapus that occurs throughout, and how he plays a role in this. Obviously, to most readers in the modern day the sexual violence that is synonymous with Priapus is horrific. However, it must be acknowledged that the Romans had very different reactions to it, and what we could consider as a prime example of sexual violence and dominance in a purely negative light could instead be considered humourous in a strange sort of way, especially when it comes to the negative representations of homosexuality. Although this book was not the most useful for my purposes, considering I am not focusing on humor within the Priapea, it is important for me to have a wider context of the thoughts and feelings of the Romans, and how they would have reacted to the work. Also very useful was Appendix 2, on Roman homosexuality. Although this appendix can by no means cover the full scope of Roman homosexuality, it is  good starting point and overview to some of the key topics. These topics will be further discussed in other readings that make up my bibliography.

• Young, Elizabeth Marie. 2015.  The Touch of the Cinaedus: Unmanly Sensations in the Carmina Priapea. Classical antiquity 34.1: 183–208

3. Texts on the Priapea which do not necessarily talk about homosexuality.

• Callebat, Louis. 2012. Priapées. Collection des universités de France. Série latine, 402. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. ISBN 9782251014623
• Goldberg, Christiane. 1992. Carmina Priapea : Einleitung, Übersetzung, Interpretation und Kommentar. Heidelberg: C. Winter, Universitätsverlag.
• Elomaa, Heather. 2015. The Poetics of the ‘Carmina Priapea’. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

– This paper also really helped with the actual language of the Priapea, as well as helping me to appreciate the language more. Even though it is not what I’m focusing on in my paper, it is still helpful as background knowledge.

• Hunt, Ailsa. 2011. Priapus as wooden god: confronting manufacture and destruction. Cambridge Classical Journal, vol. 57, pp. 29-54.

– This paper talks about some of the different interpretations of Priapus, and talks a lot about the wooden figures of Priapus that were common in Ancient Greece and Rome.

• Charilaos N., Michalopoulos. 2018. Disease, Bodily Malfunction, and Laughter in the Priapea. Illinois Classical Studies, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 420–37.
• Howard M., Jackson; E. Murgia, Charles. 1996. Notes on Problems in the Text of ‘Carmina Priapea.’ Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi Dei Testi Classici, no. 37, pp. 245–70.
• Radford, Robert S. 1921. The Priapea and the Vergilian Appendix. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol. 52, pp. 148–77.
• Grewing, Farouk. 1995. Priapean Poems. The Classical Review, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 31–33.
• Hooper, Richard. 1999. The Priapus Poems: Erotic Epigrams from Ancient Rome. United States, University of Illinois Press.
• Miguel Mora, Carlos de. 2008. Catulo en los Carmina Priapea. MOM Éditions 38, no. 1: 83–98.
• Clairmont, R. E.. 1983. Carmina Priapea (edition, With Comparison Of Manuscripts, Bibliography). ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: The Humanities and Social Sciences Collection.
• Thomason, R. F. (1929). The Priapea And Ovid: A Study Of The Language Of The Poems. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: The Humanities and Social Sciences Collection.

– This paper was extremely helpful for a general overview of the language of the Priapea, and helped me to understand more the complexity and beauty of the language within them.

• Uden, J. 2010. The Vanishing Gardens of Priapus. HSCP 105: 189-219
• Uden, J. 2007. Impersonating Priapus. AJP 128: 1-26.