It-Fiction in Catullus, Horace and Martial

Abstract

This article aims to identify, analyze, and interpret examples of it-fiction in the works of the Roman authors Catullus, Horace and Martial. It-fiction characteristically offers subjectivity that emanates from things, raw materials, objects in nature and animals, thus differentiating itself from object enunciation in fables (where animals are allegorical transpositions of human interests and practices) and fairy tales (where objects intervene in human actions and, on occasion, pass judgement on them). It-fiction in ancient Greek and Latin Literature can be considered a precedent for the sub gender of the same name that surfaced in Western satirical literature in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, in which objects such as coins, manufactured items and animals that circulated in society offered criticism on that time’s society.