Full Circle: Juvenal’s Egyptians and the Return of the “Angry White Man” in Satire 15

Authors

Nancy Shumate, Smith CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-14-2021

Publication Title

New England Classical Journal

Abstract

Some critics have seen a softening of Juvenal’s signature anger in the later satires, while others argue, on the contrary, that the indignatio animating the earlier poems resurfaces toward the end of the corpus. This paper supports the second position by comparing the characterization of speakers in the first six satires and in the fifteenth. In spite of its different setting and quasi-philosophical trappings, the (virtually) last poem’s speaker emerges as a variation of the same reactionary character type so fully drawn in the first two books. The Satires are thus framed by prototypes of the grievance-driven “angry white man” of later eras.

Keywords

Juvenal, satire, identity, nationalism, othering, Romanness, persona

Volume

48

Issue

1

First Page

81

Last Page

96

DOI

10.52284/NECJ/48.1/article/shumate

ISSN

2692-5869

Comments

Archived as published.

Originally published in Holy Cross Digital Commons, CrossWorks

Recommended Citation

Shumate, Nancy (2021) "Full Circle: Juvenal’s Egyptians and the Return of the “Angry White Man” in Satire 15," New England Classical Journal: Vol. 48 : Iss. 1 , 81-96. https://doi.org/10.52284/NECJ/48.1/article/shumate