Macroespaço e microespaço no Satyricon de Petrónio: a narrativa de viagens e a tensão entre espaço aberto e fechado

Abstract

The preserved part of the Satyricon develops its plot around three large spaces marked by Greek influence in the Roman world and by the impulse to travel, while at the same time being crossed by the dynamics of tension between open and closed space, and by the presence of dominant characters: the Graeca urbs, where the first part of the narrative is set, under the control of the freedman Trimalchio; the immense sea furrowed by the ship of the crude Lichas; the unashamed sterility of Crotona, where the old poet Eumolpus gets the better over the mob of heredipetae. The objective of this study is to examine how the crossing of different sensitivities reflects the worldview of the Roman Empire, while accentuating, on the other hand, a sense of collapsing identity and of insecurity, emphasized by the oscillation between open and closed spaces.