Misogynistic musings : the Roman wives in Juvenal's Satire 6

Vol.27,No.1(2022)

Gergő Gellérfi

https://doi.org/10.5817/GLB2022-1-5

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/145030

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Abstract
Expressions such as 'misogyny' and 'anti-feminist' appear again and again in papers dealing with Juvenal's almost 700-line-long Satire 6, where they are used not only to describe the text itself, but also its narrator and, in some cases, the poet himself. Accordingly, the misogynistic disposition of Satire 6 is a well-discussed feature of the poem. To (re)examine this question, I approach the text by focusing on the targets of the invective – that is, the women listed as deterrent examples for the addressee Postumus – and by comparing the Juvenalian narrator's attitude towards women to the treatment of homosexuals and foreigners in the Satires in order to prove that while Satire 6 has strong misogynistic features, the Juvenalian narrator cannot and should not be considered as a misogynistic character.

Keywords:
Juvenal; satire; Satire 6; misogyny; misogamy; sexism

Pages:
57–67
References

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