Rome's Visceral Reactions

In ancient Rome, the Latin word viscera denoted the inner parts of the body, where physical sensations related to fear and anger could be felt and whose injury meant certain death. Viscera were also entangled with religious, political, and reproductive imagery: the word could refer to cuts of sacrif...

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প্রধান লেখক: Hines, Caitlin
বিন্যাস: Online
ভাষা:ইংরেজি
প্রকাশিত: University of Michigan Press 2026
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অনলাইন ব্যবহার করুন:ONIX_20260112T111714_9780472905393_3
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author Hines, Caitlin
author_browse Hines, Caitlin
author_facet Hines, Caitlin
author_sort Hines, Caitlin
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description In ancient Rome, the Latin word viscera denoted the inner parts of the body, where physical sensations related to fear and anger could be felt and whose injury meant certain death. Viscera were also entangled with religious, political, and reproductive imagery: the word could refer to cuts of sacrificial meat, the inner workings of a governing body, a mother’s fertile womb, and the offspring she has carried. It appears in scientific descriptions of human anatomy, in elaborations of violent deaths, accusations of political conspiracy, and the laments of parents who must watch their children die. The sudden expansions of viscera into vivid metaphors for the body politic, the violated womb, and the desecrated sacrifice materialized in parallel with watershed moments in Roman history, reflecting urgent contemporary anxieties about politics, reproduction, and succession. Rome’s Visceral Reactions traces and interprets the semantic history of viscera, whose progressive acquisition of new meanings offers a compelling case for the dynamic interaction between body metaphor, semantic change, and political crisis at Rome. Caitlin Hines follows the history of viscera from its earliest attestations through the end of the Julio-Claudian period and considers the works of Lucretius, Cicero, Vergil, Livy, Ovid, Seneca, and Lucan. Applying theories of embodied cognition and semantic change, Hines demonstrates how Roman authors influenced the development of their language through the invention, reception, and affirmation of innovative meanings and how pressing political and cultural crises could shape, and be shaped in return, by the sophisticated linguistic games of the Roman literary elite.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1709442026-01-16T06:24:02Z Rome's Visceral Reactions Hines, Caitlin body metaphor, semantic change, viscera, ancient Rome, Latin literature, Latin poetry, Latin language, Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, Roman republic, Roman empire, Augustan literature, Neronian literature, Latin epic, Latin elegy, Latin tragedy, conceptual metaphor theory, embodied metaphor, intertextuality, cultural discourse, situational semantics, civil war, fertility politics, Roman sacrifice thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DN Biography and non-fiction prose::DNT Anthologies: general thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DB Ancient, classical and medieval texts thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHD European history::NHDA European history: the Romans thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology::JHMC Social and cultural anthropology In ancient Rome, the Latin word viscera denoted the inner parts of the body, where physical sensations related to fear and anger could be felt and whose injury meant certain death. Viscera were also entangled with religious, political, and reproductive imagery: the word could refer to cuts of sacrificial meat, the inner workings of a governing body, a mother’s fertile womb, and the offspring she has carried. It appears in scientific descriptions of human anatomy, in elaborations of violent deaths, accusations of political conspiracy, and the laments of parents who must watch their children die. The sudden expansions of viscera into vivid metaphors for the body politic, the violated womb, and the desecrated sacrifice materialized in parallel with watershed moments in Roman history, reflecting urgent contemporary anxieties about politics, reproduction, and succession. Rome’s Visceral Reactions traces and interprets the semantic history of viscera, whose progressive acquisition of new meanings offers a compelling case for the dynamic interaction between body metaphor, semantic change, and political crisis at Rome. Caitlin Hines follows the history of viscera from its earliest attestations through the end of the Julio-Claudian period and considers the works of Lucretius, Cicero, Vergil, Livy, Ovid, Seneca, and Lucan. Applying theories of embodied cognition and semantic change, Hines demonstrates how Roman authors influenced the development of their language through the invention, reception, and affirmation of innovative meanings and how pressing political and cultural crises could shape, and be shaped in return, by the sophisticated linguistic games of the Roman literary elite. 2026-01-16T06:24:01Z 2026-01-16T06:24:01Z 2026-01-12T10:21:04Z 2026 book ONIX_20260112T111714_9780472905393_3 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/109708 9780472905393 9780472133666 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/170944 eng open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/109708/1/9780472905393.pdf University of Michigan Press 10.3998/mpub.14513088 10.3998/mpub.14513088 b7359529-e5f7-4510-a59f-d7dafa1d4d17 041cae5f-2cfc-4b3e-8ecc-c31aa46f166e 9780472905393 9780472133666 246 [...] open access
spellingShingle body metaphor, semantic change, viscera, ancient Rome, Latin literature, Latin poetry, Latin language, Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, Roman republic, Roman empire, Augustan literature, Neronian literature, Latin epic, Latin elegy, Latin tragedy, conceptual metaphor theory, embodied metaphor, intertextuality, cultural discourse, situational semantics, civil war, fertility politics, Roman sacrifice
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DN Biography and non-fiction prose::DNT Anthologies: general
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DB Ancient, classical and medieval texts
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHD European history::NHDA European history: the Romans
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology::JHMC Social and cultural anthropology
Hines, Caitlin
Rome's Visceral Reactions
title Rome's Visceral Reactions
title_full Rome's Visceral Reactions
title_fullStr Rome's Visceral Reactions
title_full_unstemmed Rome's Visceral Reactions
title_short Rome's Visceral Reactions
title_sort rome s visceral reactions
topic body metaphor, semantic change, viscera, ancient Rome, Latin literature, Latin poetry, Latin language, Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, Roman republic, Roman empire, Augustan literature, Neronian literature, Latin epic, Latin elegy, Latin tragedy, conceptual metaphor theory, embodied metaphor, intertextuality, cultural discourse, situational semantics, civil war, fertility politics, Roman sacrifice
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DN Biography and non-fiction prose::DNT Anthologies: general
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DB Ancient, classical and medieval texts
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHD European history::NHDA European history: the Romans
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology::JHMC Social and cultural anthropology
topic_facet body metaphor, semantic change, viscera, ancient Rome, Latin literature, Latin poetry, Latin language, Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, Roman republic, Roman empire, Augustan literature, Neronian literature, Latin epic, Latin elegy, Latin tragedy, conceptual metaphor theory, embodied metaphor, intertextuality, cultural discourse, situational semantics, civil war, fertility politics, Roman sacrifice
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DN Biography and non-fiction prose::DNT Anthologies: general
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DB Ancient, classical and medieval texts
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHD European history::NHDA European history: the Romans
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology::JHMC Social and cultural anthropology
url ONIX_20260112T111714_9780472905393_3
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