Description
Book SynopsisIn The Jeweled Style, Michael Roberts offers a new approach to the Latin poetry of late antiquity, one centering on an aesthetic quality common to both the literature and the art of the period...
Trade ReviewRobert skillfully delineates the qualities of the 'jeweled style' and shows that, although rhetorical ostentation was sometimes viewed with suspicion by Christian authors, it became an enduring part of late antique and medieval aesthetics. Roberts's discussions of poetry and the classical tradition are clear and informative, but it is primarily the extensive chapter on literature and the visual arts that makes this study so worthwhile. This book should not be overlooked by anyone interested in a readable treatment of early Christian and medieval Latin poetry.
* Religious Studies Review *
Roberts has produced a gem of a book about Latin poetry of the Roman dominate.... By analyzing the style of a number of the major poets of the period, Roberts makes it clear that late Roman poetry is just as sophisticated, in its own right, as the works of the early principate. He argues that the literature has to be considered against the background of the period in which it was produced, convincingly showing that it shares much in common with the art of the period.
* The Classical World *