Drowning in Narcissus´ mirror: psychological readings of Graeco-Roman Imperial literature.

The project aims to show how the way in which Imperial literature was produced and consumed contributed to the fact that the top-performers of this era - who produced a major part of the extant literature - often display narcissistic character traits, traces of which can be found in their lives and literary works. Moreover, the direct contact between the author and his audience during literary performances brought about a climate in which success and failure (along with potential traumas) could be very close to each other. Through studies of texts by Philostratus, Aulus Gellius, Favorinus, Aelius Aristides, Lucian, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the project aims to open new perspectives on the interaction between socio-cultural data and psychological conditions, while simultaneously, through a thorough attention for the public reception of these texts and figures, questioning and exploring the culturally defined boundaries of the normal and the pathological.

Keywords:Narcissism, Reception, Performance, Literary studies, Psychology, Imperial literature, Trauma

Disciplines:Other humanities and the arts, Other philosophy, ethics and religious studies not elsewhere classified, Language studies, Literary studies, Theory and methodology of language studies, Theory and methodology of linguistics, Theory and methodology of literary studies, Other languages and literary studies, Social psychology