Juvenal 6

Juvenal’s 6th Satire is an advanced and unpleasant text. It’s useful to show the elements and range of Roman misogynistic thinking (women’s bodies, behaviors, sexuality). There’s a shock value in reading some of J’s most obscene passages, e.g., the description of Messalina. 

Satire 6 is also about male effeminacy and men’s failure to control women, and so speaks to regimes of masculinity in Roman thinking (see also Satire 2).

You could also teach Juv. 6 in a larger module on Satire as a Roman literary form, or in an advanced Latin class, and read with Horace, Persius, Lucilius. 

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Primary Sources:

“Juvenal: Satire 6” in Chiara Sulprizio, Sarah Blake, Gender and sexuality in Juvenal’s 

Rome: Satire 2 and Satire 6. Oklahoma series in classical culture, volume 59. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2020.

(assign either all of Satire 6 = pp. 65-95; or lines 1-62, 78-135, 286-345, 435-456, 474-507, 627-661) (1-3)

Suggested companion texts:

Medical texts on female bodies and liquids

Semonides, fr. 7, on a catalogue of types of women

Pliny, NH 10.172, on Messalina’s sexual competition with a sex worker 

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Secondary Sources:

Blake, “Introduction” in Sulprizio 2020 (pp. 13-16, 20-24, 27-35) (1-3)

Richlin, Amy. “Invective Against Women in Roman Satire.” Arethusa, vol. 17, no. 1, 1984, pp. 67–80, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26308604 (2-3)

Gold, Barbara K. “‘The House I Live In Is Not My Own’: Women’s Bodies in Juvenal’ Satires.” Arethusa, vol. 31, no. 3, 1998, pp. 369–86, https://doi.org/10.1353/are.1998.0013. (2-3)

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Multimedia Resources:

Onion, Rebecca. “‘It Is a Miracle That Employers Don’t Murder More Secretaries” .’” Slate, 17 Aug.  2018. (1-3)https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/08/the-1945-book-what-men-dont-like-about-women-excerpted-in-esquire-makes-for-a-jaw-dropping-read-in-2018.html. (1-3)

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Activities:

Lecture notes (Sulprizio) (1-3)

Juvenal 6 Satire lecture notes with analysis of Gold 1998

Discussion/Reading Questions 

• What are Juvenal’s complaints about women? What stereotypes/images does he invoke? 
• What about men? About marriage?
• How is it that Roman women and men came to be like this, according to Juvenal?
• What cultural work does this kind of poetry (satire) do? How do you think a Roman reader/listener would respond to this poem?
• What historical contexts inform the production of this poem? Or, more simply, why do you think Juvenal wrote this at the moment he did?
• Is there such a thing as a good woman in Juvenal? Is his misogyny distinctive to his world or universal?
• Can women produce satire? Why or why not?
• What similarities, if any, do you see between Juvenal’s “advice” to Postumus to avoid marriage, and contemporary ideas about women, men, and relationships?

Slideshow

Juvenal, Satire 6 (aka “Women, you can’t live with ’em…”) Powerpoint Presentation https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1z-1sGKpqgByMOEPLQlUInPt2tzQ1q23M/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107459944983329366494&rtpof=true&sd=true (1-3) (Sulprizio)