The Economics of Roman Elegy: Voluntary Poverty, the Recusatio , and the Greedy Girl

Abstract

ROMAN LOVE ELEGY PRESENTS sexual relationships between elite men and women of lower status in apparently reversed gender and power positions, so that the male is enslaved to his beloved domina. This meta- phorical reversal, however, actually retains standard Roman social struc- tures, suggesting an inequity even within a private love affair: rather than sharing goals and desires, lover and beloved stand in a gendered opposi- tion. Historically, elegy has been interpreted from the perspective of its male speakers, and much scholarship has focused on the characteriza- tions of those speakers. But as it is legitimate to study the male elegiac speakers' viewpoint, it is likewise appropriate to consider that of his preferred love object and frequent addressee, the elegiac docta puella. Since much of elegy is directed at a fictive, if named, woman, 1 such an approach may illuminate some of its rhetorical strategies and gender values, particularly as they derive from and relate to Roman gendered power constructs. Since elegy in particular generically anticipates the perspective of the docta puella, 2 and makes it a structural element of the