This fascinating cultural and intellectual history focuses on education as practiced by the imperial age Romans, looking at what they considered the value of education and its effect on children. W. Martin Bloomer details the processes, exercises, claims, and contexts of liberal education from the late first century BCE to the third century CE--the epoch of rhetorical education. He examines the adaptation of Greek institutions, methods, and texts by the Romans, and traces the Romans' own history of education. Bloomer argues that while Rome's enduring educational legacy includes the seven liberal arts and a canon of school texts, its practice of competitive displays of reading, writing, and reciting were intended to instill in the young social as well as intellectual ideas.

For centuries after the fall of the Roman empire, the ability to write and speak pure Latin was the mark of the true scholar. But although such skill was esteemed in medieval times, the language of ancient Rome was as various as the styles of slaves and masters. Latinity and Literary Society at Rome reaches back to the early Roman empire to examine attitudes toward latinity, reviewing the contested origins of scholarly Latin in the polemical arena of Roman literature. W. Martin Bloomer shows how that literature's reflections on correct and incorrect speech functioned as part of a wider understanding of social relations and national identity in Rome. Bloomer's investigation begins with questions about the sociology of Latin literature-what interests were served by the creation of high style and how literary stylization constituted a system of social decorum-and goes on to offer readings of selected texts. Through studies of works ranging from Varro's De lingua latina to the verse fables of Augustine's freeman Phaedrus to the Annals of Tacitus, Bloomer examines conflicting claims to style not simply to set true Latin against vulgarism but also to ask who is excluding whom, why, and by what means. These texts exemplify the ways Roman literature employs representations of, and reflections on, proper and improper language to mirror the interests of specific groups who wished to maintain or establish their place in Roman society. They show how writers sought to influence the fundamental social issue of who had the power to confer legitimacy of speech and how their works used claims of linguistic propriety to reinforce the definition of "Romanness." Through Bloomer's study latinity emerges as a contested field of identity and social polemic heretofore unrecognized in classical scholarship. With its fresh interpretations of major and minor texts, Latinity and Literary Society at Rome is a literary history that significantly advances our understanding of the place of language in ancient Rome.

Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Valerius Maximus's "Memorable Deeds and Sayings" was the most widely read prose after the Bible. Bloomer revives this classic text to examine how, why, and for whom Valerius composed this collection of rhetorical examples. He argues that the work expresses the concerns and anxieties of literate first-century Romans and shows that it creates paradigms for a new culture.
Originally published in 1992.
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This fascinating cultural and intellectual history focuses on education as practiced by the imperial age Romans, looking at what they considered the value of education and its effect on children. W. Martin Bloomer details the processes, exercises, claims, and contexts of liberal education from the late first century BCE to the third century CE - the epoch of rhetorical education. He examines the adaptation of Greek institutions, methods, and texts by the Romans, and traces the Romans' own history of education. Bloomer argues that while Rome's enduring educational legacy includes the seven liberal arts and a canon of school texts, its practice of competitive displays of reading, writing, and reciting were intended to instill in the young social as well as intellectual ideas.

These essays, written by eminent scholars from diverse disciplines and perspectives, consider various present-day and historical efforts to make a language dominant through textual, institutional, academic, and literary means. Contributors examine pressures to elevate one language at the expense of another and the cultural and intellectual consequences of that elevation. Essays by Seamus Deane, Tony Crowley, and Peter McQuillan deal with aspects of the suppression, survival, and revival of Irish language. W Martin Bloomer, Theodore J Cachey Jr, and Richard Hunter apply modern issues of the contest of language to Greek, Latin, and the emergence of the vernacular in Europe. Haun Saussy discusses differing conceptions of linguistic power implicit in seventeenth-century attempts to construct schemes for universal communication. Susan Blum analyzes the relationship between minority and dominant language in China. Demitri Gutas describes the lack of linguistic imperialism in the spread of Arabic. Joseph Amar discusses the uses and fortunes of Syria. Vittorio Hosle concludes the collection with an essay on the spread of English as the 'universal language.' phenomenon will find this book invaluable.

These essays, written by eminent scholars from diverse disciplines and perspectives, consider various present-day and historical efforts to make a language dominant through textual, institutional, academic, and literary means. Contributors examine pressures to elevate one language at the expense of another and the cultural and intellectual consequences of that elevation. Essays by Seamus Deane, Tony Crowley, and Peter McQuillan deal with aspects of the suppression, survival, and revival of Irish language. W Martin Bloomer, Theodore J Cachey Jr, and Richard Hunter apply modern issues of the contest of language to Greek, Latin, and the emergence of the vernacular in Europe. Haun Saussy discusses differing conceptions of linguistic power implicit in seventeenth-century attempts to construct schemes for universal communication. Susan Blum analyzes the relationship between minority and dominant language in China. Demitri Gutas describes the lack of linguistic imperialism in the spread of Arabic. Joseph Amar discusses the uses and fortunes of Syria. Vittorio Hosle concludes the collection with an essay on the spread of English as the 'universal language.' phenomenon will find this book invaluable.