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How did Roman poets create character? The mythological figures that
dot the landscape of Roman poetry entail their own predetermined
plotlines and received characteristics: the idea of a gentle,
maternal Medea is as absurd as a spineless and weak Achilles. For
Roman poets, the problem is even more acute since they follow on
late in a highly developed literary tradition. The fictional
characters that populate Roman literature, such as Aeneas and
Oedipus, link text and reader in a form of communication that is
strikingly different from a first person narrator to an addressee.
With Exemplary Traits, Mira Seo addresses this often overlooked
question. Her study offers an examination of how Roman poets used
models dynamically to create character, and how their referential
approach to character reveals them mobilizing the literary
tradition. Close readings of Virgil, Lucan, Seneca, and Statius
offer a more nuanced discussion of the expectations of both authors
and audiences in the Roman world than those currently available in
scholarly debate. By tracing the philosophical and rhetorical
concepts that underlie the function of characterization, Exemplary
Traits allows for a timely reconsideration of it as a fruitful
literary technique.
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