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Article: The Roman novel in Irish writers.
- Article from:
- Irish University Review: a journal of Irish Studies
- Article date:
- September 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Irish University Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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While much attention has been given to the appropriation of Greek tragedy by contemporary Irish poets and dramatists, (1) and the Homeric parallels to Joyce's Ulysses have long been noted, (2) the impact of the Roman novels of Petronius and Apuleius on Irish writers from Wilde through Yeats and Synge to MacNeice has not excited the same interest.
Seen as the arbiter of elegance at the court of Nero, the Roman politician Petronius wrote a picaresque novel about low-life adventures in the South of Italy (Satyrica) that provides the epigraph to Eliot's poem The Waste Land and the original title -- Trimalchio at West Egg -- for Scott Fitzgerald's novel ...