THE HIGH POETRY FROM BELOW. MARTIAL AGAINST THE EPIC AND THE TRAGEDY

Abstract

There are many studies on epic and tragedy: studies from within, that is, from scholars and poets. The Latin poet Martial, on the other hand, gives us in his epigrams a humanistic and realistic reason for the scenarios, and this is demonstrated in programmatic epigrams such as 1, 107; 4, 49; 5, 53; 8, 3; 8, 55; 9, 50; 10, 4; 11, 90 and 14, 1, among others. A strong motive may be to extol the genre of the epigram, which is booming with the poet himself, and to try to stand out; a second reason may be that the high genres place gods and heroes too close to the people, away from reality and everyday life. Against this type of poetry, Martial teaches us how much pedantry and emptiness there was in every corner where the epic was recited.

There is, then, in Martial a programmatic rejection against elevated poetry of great format, dark erudition and mythological theme. What is really remarkable about Martial is that he rejects the very subject that high poetry was nourished by, the mythological story, and he does it from purely literary presuppositions, turning the focus of his poetry towards man: hominem nostra pagina sapit (10, 4, 10).