In trying to find good works by Martial to use, I have found mostly not-so-good ones, and due to
that sad, sad fact, I have appropriately (Well, appropriate in the sense that it is fitting) titled this post for his 1,235 epigrams.
I'm pretty sure at this point that I would rather switch authors, because it seems like those few
poems that are not bawdy-at-best are either bawdy-at-worst or complaints/come-backs about criticism he has received. There are others like them, but the two referencableTM ones I found, from the page of translations I looked at before reaching the end and realizing there were not many good ones, were III:9 and I:91. III:9 was titled A Silent Critic, and it complained of how Cinna would criticize him, but nobody read Cinna's criticism, so he can't be a good judge of literature when his is so terrible. I:91 is titled The Critic, and it complains of how Laelius would criticize him, but he does not write anything himself. Martial invites Laelius to either stop criticizing his (Martial's) work or write his (Laelius's) own literature.
Basically, it comes down to the fact that I just don't like Martial's writing, since it tends to err away
from the side of witty satire and towards the side of porn and arguments that his porn is good. I'm sure there are a few clean ones that I didn't read, but I feel like I still wouldn't like them.
I also took a second to check out Juvenal to see if he would be any better, and while the content
seems more interesting, the heavily metaphoric nature of it seems kind of hard to follow without a good idea of what he's talking about already, which I'm sure most Roman Citizens had.
All in all, I've decided to move on and not use either of the satirical authors, and I've reached that
decision the day before the deadline you gave me, to decide by Friday. Therefore, I think it would be fitting to try "something completely different."
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