Reflections on the relation between orality and poetry in Martial's poetic

Abstract

This work aims to analyze a fundamental aspect of the existence of the literary phenomenon in antiquity: the relation that is established, for its perfect functioning, between orality and literacy. To do that, we have taken as theoretical basis the studies in the area of History of reading, developed by Roger Chartier and others, as well as the concept of literary field used by Maingueneau (and recovered from Bourdieu) in his explanation about the constitutive factors of a literary work's context. With this theoretical referential, we intend to understand the spatial and temporal variations to which the rites of production, reception, and circulation of the literary phenomenon are submitted, to, by using poems of Marcus Valerius Martial, exemplify in what sense the strong relation between orality and literacy, that passes through the ancient world in a wide manner, makes itself present in the very compositional act of this poetry.