Conclusion to Part III

Abstract

IN THESE CHAPTERS I HAVE TRACED THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DIStinct set of meanings, limited to the superbia cluster, beginning in the Augustan reconfiguration of the pride script. My point of departure was the argument I made in Chapter 3, that the Republican elite’s investment in its members’ equality underlies the exclusively negative articulation of pride and its corresponding centering as the signature anti-republican, monarchical quality. Here I showed that change to one-man rule motivated an intense engagement with the concept of pride in contemporary poetic texts that allowed a positive and neutral version of the emotion to be expressed. In ...