Juvenal, writing between AD 110 and 130, was one of the greatest satirists of Imperial Rome. His powerful and witty attacks on the vices, abuses, and follies of the big city have been admired and used by many English writers, including Ben Jonson, Dryden, and most notably, Dr Johnson, who described his writing as `a mixture of gaiety and statelines, of pointed sentences and declamatory grandeur'.
Juvenal has been seen as a stern moralist and, more recently, as an extravagant wit, and is acclaimed for his vivid description of the scenes which aroused his anger. He coined the famous phrase designating people `eager and anxious for two things; bread and races' (panem et circenses').
Niall Rudd's translation reproduces the original style and metrical effect of Juvenal's hexameters. William Barr's Introduction and Notes provide literary and historical background to the sixteen satires.
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Juvenal, writing between AD 110 and 130, was one of the greatest satirists of Imperial Rome. His powerful and witty attacks on the vices, abuses, and follies of the big city have been admired and used by many English writers, including Ben Jonson, Dryden, and most notably, Dr Johnson, who described his writing as `a mixture of gaiety and statelines, of pointed sentences and declamatory grandeur'.
Juvenal has been seen as a stern moralist and, more recently, as an extravagant wit, and is acclaimed for his vivid description of the scenes which aroused his anger. He coined the famous phrase designating people `eager and anxious for two things; bread and races' (panem et circenses').
Niall Rudd's translation reproduces the original style and metrical effect of Juvenal's hexameters. William Barr's Introduction and Notes provide literary and historical background to the sixteen satires.
'The translation itself goes a long way towards catching J.'s mixture of rhetoric and wit. It is lively and taut ... translation is excellent, not only the best available in English but also good to read, no bad thing as most of its readers will be Latinless.'
F. Jones, University of Liverpool, The Classical Review, Vol. XLII, 1992
