Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal

A critical survey traces Latin poetical production after the Augustan era, arguing that imperial politics, rhetorical schooling, and the shadow of earlier masters produced technical polish but curtailed originality. Chapters assess dramatic experiment and Seneca's declamatory tragedies; the development of satire in figures such as Persius, Martial, and Juvenal; and the ambitions and flaws of later epicists including Lucan, Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus. The study combines close readings of metre, diction, and rhetoric with consideration of social context, weighing each poet's distinctive merits and recurring defects across a fragmented, often self-conscious literary landscape.