R.'s book considers the ways in which an autonomist rhetoric orients Latin poets' self-representation: he is less interested in whether the poets under consideration were autonomous than in their employment of an autonomist discourse. A rather dense introduction offers an overview of the development of aesthetic autonomy in eighteenth-century philosophy through to the present day, considering the role played by autonomy in critical and hermeneutic methodologies (e.g. New Criticism, Deconstruction, New Historicism). He suggests that such approaches to textual exegesis perpetuate a dichotomy between autonomy and instrumentality, demanding that we fall down on one side or other of the divide. In order to begin to move past this ‘impasse’ which ‘confines’ much of the present debate, R. proposes that we consider autonomist rhetoric and strategies in earlier periods where this ‘distinctive modern polemic is not at work’ (pp. 8–9). Prompted by the recognition, by the likes of Adorno and Habermas, that the ‘segregated realm of the aesthetic’ might provide a fitting space for ‘reflection’ on society and social behaviour, R. argues that ‘literature's autonomy and social instrumentality are not necessarily mutually exclusive’ (p. 10), and proposes that the notion of ‘instrumental autonomy’ – denoting the value of a work of art ‘both intrinsically and instrumentally’ – would provide a more felicitous approach to the study of literature in pre-modern cultures.
The Roman poets, R. argues, found it necessary to shape a position for themselves in a society which held their endeavour to be ancillary to more important aspects of life; they did not wish to appear as mere clients, but to have their own honos. They achieved this position through their manipulation of a number of complementary, though not necessarily consistent, autonomist paradigms, rarely limiting themselves to the treatment of any one of them: a focus on the poetry's ‘adherence to its own intrinsic ends’ and aesthetic criteria; the fashioning of ‘a stance of ethical autarky’ (seen most clearly in the Horatian secessus, and in the closed world of the elegiac lover); and a political or ideological pose by which independence from people of influence and ‘dominant public ideals’ is maintained (p. 23).
Taking a chronological approach, R.'s first chapter lays the ground for the development of an autonomist rhetoric in late Republican Rome. He briefly considers the aristocratic libertas with which Lucilius satirises the world surrounding him: a heteronomist, he does not pursue an autarkic value-system, or a concern with aesthetic criteria alone, but constructs a persona far enough from the madding crowd to be able to comment on them from a remove. By contrast, R. argues, Catullus fashions a world of amatory and literary concerns, defining it against increasing political discord. Close readings of a number of the polymetrics allow R. to demonstrate how Catullus asserts the worth of his autonomous stance as a poet in relation to politics and the mos maiorum, whilst ensuring that his poems remain distinct from the sphere of their creator by insisting on a division between his poetry's aesthetics and his ethical position. This rhetorical slippage in his self-representation allows Catullus to engage with heteronomist concerns by inveighing against public figures with impunity. R. juxtaposes this multifaceted rhetoric with Cicero's account of his consulship, which concerns itself with its author's public reputation and the respublica, absorbing its creator's ethics into its substance.
Next, R. explores the rhetorical strategies of the poets of the 30s and 20s b.c., proposing that, despite their control over delimited worlds, these realms are constantly threatened by external heteronomist discourses. Before Horace's physical retreat to his estate in Satires 2, the poet of Satires 1 undertakes an autonomist turn, through his concern with an ethical and aesthetic satiety, which prevents the compromising of his poetry through the securitas found in Maecenas' patronage. Conspicuous in its absence, however, is any serious treatment of the Epodes, written contemporaneously with Satires 1, which show that Horace was already willing to engage with public affairs and to advertise his enjoyment of Maecenas' friendship. R.'s treatment of Propertius 1 explores the sequestration secured by the poet's status both as amator, confined within a lover's discourse, and as that discourse's author and manipulator against competing generic and social concerns; he argues that the book's difficult closing poems challenge our interpretation of the impregnable amatory realm which Propertius has fashioned, as threats external to the fragile elegiac world impinge on it. Tibullus, R. persuasively shows, adopts two models of autonomy which he plays off one another: his rural – partly metapoetic – secessus is borrowed from the world of the Eclogues, whilst Propertius' confined amatory sphere provides the model for Tibullus' encounters with his lovers. R. considers Tibullus' representation of Messalla in the light of the heteronomist Panegyricus Messallae, thereby highlighting the attention paid by the elegist to demarcating his patron's presence, whilst acknowledging the latter's importance to ensuring his success.
R.'s third chapter argues for a developing autonomist position which the poets adopt regarding loyalty to and dissent from the early principate, a strategy lending their voices legitimacy and authority at a time when their work was coming to enjoy greater publicity. In considering Propertius 2–4, R. shows that the rhetorical slippage from secluded amatory sphere to a discourse that engages public figures and concerns is not the result of a clean break, but a gradual transition. Propertius apparently grounds this move in his so-called ‘Callimachean integrity’, the tropes of elegy, and consideration of his death, literary monumentality and immortality. Exploration of ‘Callimachean’ presences and Propertius' conspicuous anxiety about posterity in Book 1, which foreshadow much of what follows in his corpus, would strengthen this notion; greater weight could also be given to the importance of the scripta puella in Propertius' self-representation. For R., the ethical and aesthetic secessus of Horace's Odes – his Sabine farm and the confined (poetic) symposion – allows for engagement with heteronomist concerns by juxtaposing his autarky with the external pressures of civic and political life; by the acknowledgement that his secessus is the result of present-day stability and Maecenas' patronage; and (in Book 3) by the mutually-reinforcing definition of Horatian autonomy against Augustan power. Such autonomy is called into question in the Epistles, however, as Horace destabilises his rural secessus: letters written from his less clearly delineated estate reach the city, and even Augustus. Accommodated by the flexibility of his ethical position (Ep. 1.1.16–19), Horace's heteronomising turn, couched in the aesthetic integrity of his verse, accommodates poetry's newfound significance as a public endeavour. His ‘autonomist project’ can include panegyric because of its devotion to aesthetic quality: without this, a utilitarian praise-piece will not endure. Surprisingly little is said on Odes 4 and the Carmen saeculare. Ovid's early elegy presents love and poetry as public endeavours, constituting ‘an intrinsically valid realm’ which challenges heteronomist concerns: the poet aims not at subversion, but explores the bounds of autonomist rhetoric. His portrayal of the literary cause of his relegatio in the Tristia – censorship – marks a paradigmatic shift toward a heteronomist poetics which vies with the autonomist pose he adopts as a marginalised adversary of the emperor: Augustus has a vast empire, but poetry endures beyond temporal and spatial limits (Tr. 3.7 & 4.10); unfortunately omitted from R.'s discussion is Met. 15.871–9.
In his final chapter, R. discusses how imperial poets engage with autonomist rhetoric, inverting or dismantling it to varying degrees. Statius employs an understated autonomist rhetoric, thus ensuring the validity of his panegyric, whilst maintaining credibility in a society where a client-poet's heteronomist status is unavoidable. The epigrammatist Martial subverts the (ethical) autarky of autonomist poses, focusing on the necessity of patronage, and, like Juvenal, emphasises poetry's materiality and ephemerality: posthumous renown won through autonomy is not as important as immediate success. In Juvenal's poetry, R. identifies a tension, between urban heteronomy and an escape from such concerns which the satirist cannot alleviate: pursuing libertas, the satirist is caught in a dialectic forged in autonomist rhetoric.
Despite a jargon-heavy lexis and poor editing, R.'s broad-ranging volume provides a number of useful close-readings and novel insights into the rhetorical moment of the poets whose works he treats, and is strongest in this respect. It is clear from R.'s work that appreciating a rhetoric of autonomy, as distinguished from autonomism, facilitates greater hermeneutic manoeuvre for a reader of pre-modern literature, though critics attuned to such rhetorical moments will have to be wary of losing sight of other approaches, and not allowing tropes to become more significant than they are.
