L'architettura del ‘casto’ libro ottavo di Marziale: poetica epigrammatica, tessitura tematica e dispositio carminum

In the prefatory epistle of the VIII book, Martial states that the new libellus will celebrate the prince, renouncing the licentia verborum and, at most, interspersing a few poems of a playful character (aliqua iocorum mixtura). In fact, far from being the fruit of an artificial juxtaposition of themes, the book is structured with remarkable compactness and continuity: the register of the celebration of Domitian is matched by the story of the people who enjoy his munificence and by the comic misadventures (above all, though not exclusively) of the ego. This creates a well-articulated poetic device on multiple intertwining levels: this sophisticated structure proves to be perfectly suited to the new epigrammatic poetics that the author gradually displays, in the dedication and metaliterary poems. By exploiting the categories of analysis well developed by Alberto Canobbio (on the two macro-environments in which Martial articulates the literary space, the grande and the parvum), an overview of the structure of the book and an in-depth analysis of some key poems (8, 1; 3; 55; 73; 82) are proposed.