Slender verse: Roman elegy and ancient rhetorical theory

The the literary vocabulary that metaphorically identifies a text with its author's body which was highly developed by the early Romans in their elegy was examined from the perspective of ancient rhetorical theory. The theory's assumption of the close links between poetry and oratory explains the anatomical metaphor's elaboration in the period's poetry as well. The factors argued to have contributed to the Roman elaboration of the metaphor are the Atticist-Asianist controversy in the last decade of the Republic and the stylistic innovations of Calvus, a known elegist and orator of the period.