Provoking Politeness

Dialogic interaction plays important generic, poetic, and structural roles within hexametric Latin satire. One aspect of this interaction which has received little prior exegesis is the presence, or lack, of politeness. By adapting and applying existing models which study this sociolinguistic phenomenon, we can perceive not only patterned use of politeness across the genre, but further intertextuality between Latin satire and Roman comedy. Interactions in the works of Horace and Juvenal are illustrative of both shared ‘politeness-motifs’, as well as divergent stylistic adaptations which suit each poet’s literary agenda.