Roman elegy might be one of the genres where the grotesque is least expected. Yet, after having read Mariapia Pietropaolo's thoughtful book, no reader will doubt that the grotesque has a part to play in Roman elegy and that our reading of this sophisticated genre is enhanced by paying attention to its grotesque aspects.

Scholarship on Roman elegy has been one of the most theoretically informed areas of Latin literary scholarship and this book is no exception. P. is inspired by scholarship on explorations of the grotesque in other ancient genres (comedy, invective and satire), but ch.1 opens up a wide panorama of approaches to the grotesque and is to be recommended for operating within both a classical and modern framework. It has an impressive round-up of theorists ranging from Plato via Kant to Bakhtin and Kristeva. Accordingly, P. offers no simple theory of the grotesque to be applied in the analysis. Rather, she analyses instances of what she refers to as ‘aversion-inspiring artistic imagery and the disquieting aesthetic experience that it elicits’ (5) as it plays out within the specific context of each poem, drawing eclectically upon the theories discussed here.

The grotesque is normally conceived as the opposite of idealised beauty of the kind associated with love poetry. Yet, precisely as an opposite of beauty, the grotesque is, according to P., part of a dialectic that lies at the core of elegy. This is further linked to the paradox of ugliness, namely the aesthetic effect of the representation of ugliness. These ideas are explored in seven chapters dealing with the elegiac corpus. However, P. starts her exploration with a chapter on the prehistory of the elegiac grotesque (ch. 2). Already here the reader experiences how the focus on the grotesque opens up new perspectives, in the rather original emphasis on Lucretius and the elegiac libellus of Catullus as contexts in which to read elegy. In particular, Lucretius’ diatribe against love in DRN 4 — naturally full of grotesque imagery and a kind of inversion of Ovid's ‘catalogue aria’ (Am. 2.4) — gives food for thought.

The analysis of the elegiac corpus proper starts with a close reading of Propertius’ prosopopoeia of Cynthia from the grave in 4.7 (ch. 3). In this poem Propertius uses grotesque imagery (like the burned finger and the missing lips, 9–10) to take account of his beloved's erotic appeal even beyond the grave. Ch. 4 analyses instances of the grotesque in Ovid, focusing on the appeal of the fault (vitium). At the forefront are the poems on abortion (Am. 3.13 and 14) and loss of hair (Am. 1.14). That the vitium might be regarded as fundamental to Ovid's concept of elegy is backed up by the personification of elegy, the limping Elegeia (Am. 3.1). In the following three chapters, P. focuses on what might be regarded as the elegiac adversaries, first the figure of the procuress (lena) (chs 5 and 6) and then the rival (ch. 7). These are obviously figures in which the poet can excel in grotesque imagery. However, they are not simply adversaries or contrasts. They may, on a poetic or erotic level, also be seen as uncanny parallels linked to the poet amator or elegiac puella. Hybridity is an important form of grotesque imagery and Pasiphae is an obvious example. Ch. 8 analyses Pasiphae in Ars 1 as a metapoetic figure familiar with the conventions of elegy. The book closes with an analysis of Ovid's rejection of elegy, the Remedia. P. argues that the place of the grotesque here (although less stylistically explored than one might expect from Ovid) precisely points to the centrality of the grotesque in Ovid's concept of elegy as he rejects the genre from within. Here P. also neatly returns to Lucretius’ diatribe as the vitia now are presented as solely negative.

Roman elegy has over the last thirty years been scrutinised from a range of perspectives. Are there any angles left, one might ask — and might these at all be fruitful? P. shows herself a nuanced reader of the elegiac corpus and makes a strong case for the productivity of reading elegy through the lens of the grotesque. One gets a glimpse of the richness by simply looking at the index — there are thirty-three subentries under the term grotesque. The index also reveals a range of other keywords on beauty, ugliness, the sublime and their like that are absent from e.g. the index to B. K. Gold, A Companion to Roman Love Elegy (2012). However, P. argues that the grotesque is not only an intervention in the genre of elegy, but constituent of the genre itself. This makes this reader want to see the lens used on other elegiac poems (including Lygdamus and Sulpicia). Likewise, P. is concerned with not crossing the rather strict boundaries of elegy proper that she has set up. It is a compliment to P.'s book that this reader would like her to do precisely that.