Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

PROSE SATIRE
on their wits (and on the fringes of the law) commonly do. We have then no
organic, inevitably developed plot. It is uncertain even whether the theme of
Priapus' hostility ran from beginning to end or merely through a portion of
the novel.
Two distinct styles stand out in our fragments, that of the narrative and the
'educated' characters and that given to Trimalchio and the other freedmen.
For unaffected ease and raciness many passages where the former style is used
are quite unsurpassed. It is also an extremely flexible medium, admitting
endless changes of nuance. And the opportunity Petronius enjoys to switch
into verse, without syntactical break if necessary, is a useful resource: sometimes
he can in verse better convey emotion or indicate amusing parallels.
He is particularly skilful in reproducing the absurdities and pomposity of the
superficially educated. Encolpius and Giton, when in extremity, discourse
as if in a school of rhetoric (n4.8—12); other characters rant, gush, or pontificate
whenever they get the chance. There is no less verisimilitude in the
freedmen's conversation, fruity, solecistic, and irrepressible. They are characterized
by what they say (e.g. 61.6—62.14), as we ll as by the way they speak.
Admittedly Petronius exaggerates somewhat. That so many homely saws, so
much slang, and so much gutter wit were ever in real life accumulated in such
short compass is hard to believe. Sam Weller at his best could not compete.
But the language used is not far removed from reality, as independent evidence
for colloquial Latin attests. Of course some questions arise, for instance over
the appreciable number of Grecisms. Are they representative of colloquial
speech in this milieu only, or generally? And one other question is especially
tantalizing. Did Petronius in the books now lost attempt to copy the language
of clearly identifiable social groups? He may have done so, for we must remember
that Trimalchio's party is only an extended episode, and not to be
accorded unique importance.
Evidence for substantial use of Petronius in later Latin literature is hard to
find. Apuleius, in his novel's conception and style, pursued a different course,
though similarities too may be detected. In modern times we encounter
numerous works which bear a passing resemblance to Petronius', but few
traces of direct imitation. Fragments are not perhaps very tempting to imitators.
The Spanish picaresque novels seem to owe more to Apuleius. Again,
though Petronius should have been congenial to some of our eighteenthcentury
novelists, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, reminiscences there are
tenuous indeed. But a deep and subtle influence has been discerned in certain
classics of the present century, including Joyce's Ulysses and Eliot's Waste
Land. The latter acknowledges a connexion in his epigraph.
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