Latin Elegy

La questione della genesi e dell’evoluzione dell’elegia latina è uno dei temi più interessanti e maggiormente affrontati dagli studiosi di ogni epoca, in quanto pare di ritrovarsi dinnanzi ad una forma letteraria che non ha alcun riscontro preciso nella letteratura greca, soprattutto per quanto riguarda uno dei suoi caratteri distintivi: quello erotico soggettivo. A tal proposito, nell’ambito della poesia neoterica, il carme 68 di Catullo occupa un ruolo di primo piano assoluto e potrebbe, pertanto, considerarsi «the prototype of the Latin erotic elegy», ovvero la prima grande elegia latina, derivata dall’applicazione dei canoni alessandrini alla mentalità propria del mondo romano, per la funzione archetipica svolta per la restante produzione elegiaca. Oggetto privilegiato di questo saggio, tuttavia, sono i versi 1- 20 del carme 68, facenti parte della sezione dell’opera dedicata a Manlius. Dopo aver ricevuto da lui una lettera compassionevole, infatti, Catullo risponde che, a causa della difficile situazione in cui si trovava, non possedeva uno stato d’animo adatto né per affrontare discorsi inerenti all’amore, né per dedicarsi alla composizione di poesia amorosa.

In this paper I suggest that at the beginning of the Metamorphoses through narrative techniques and the structure of the verses, in particular lines 1.10-14, the poet claims to be a fabricator mundi and that his text exists before the creation of the world, becoming the model for its formation. In the epilogue, the poet also declares his certainty that his work will be eternal; it will live, that is, sine fine as he states at Tristia 2.63-4. This reading of sine fine actually alludes to the prophecy of Jupiter in the first book of the Aeneid where the phrase meant the eternity of the Roman dominion. The perpetuum carmen, as the poet characterised the Metamorphoses at 1.4, refers not only to the time-span of the work through to the poet's own time but more importantly to the eternal character of his poetry. It is the poetic genius which cannot be trapped in a specific time frame. There is a consensus among Ovidian scholars that in writing the Metamorphoses Ovid had Virgil and his work firmly in mind. In striving for originality, he also had to emulate almost the entire Greek and Roman literary tradition. In his perpetuum carmen, therefore, he was confronted with the task of composing an all-inclusive work with regard to time, subject-matter and literary genre. The purpose of this paper is to show how Ovid exploited certain methods and techniques in order to imply, through the narrative, the omnipotence of the poetic genius through the creation of his text.

My PhD Thesis scrutinized with the symbolic aspects of space in Latin Augustan love elegy and particularly with two main topics: urban space, related with 'urbanitas' as a cultural and literary model, and travel, often related to warfare and greed for money.

Lucan's epic depicts the displacement of the elegiac notion of militia amoris by bellum civile through his use of elegiac allusions and topoi. Specifically, Julia's ghost is parallel to Cynthia's ghost in Propertius 4.7; the description of Erictho draws on the thumbnail sketches of witches in elegy; Cleopatra is portrayed as a meretrix who follows Ovid's advice in Ars Amatoria 3; Cornelia is depicted as one of the abandoned heroines; and Pompey is cast as an elegiac lover. In each case, however, Lucan frustrates expectations by negating or inverting the elegiac passage or topos: the civil war thus disturbs even the apolitical world of elegy. * My deepest thanks are due to

It is well known by critics that in Ovid’s Metamorphoses a crucial aspect of the narrative is represented by the narrator’s tendency to mark the miraculous, astonishing, and thus incredible side of the stories he tells: the infinite number of tales narrated through the poem sets the reader in front of a series of miracula, whose unbelievable character is constantly emphasized. It is worth noticing that in his elegies from exile Ovid does not seem to lose his interest in the mirum: in the Tristia and the Epistulae ex Ponto, the descriptions of Tomis and its surroundings (the remote Pontic locality where the poet was banished) concentrate upon those elements which cannot but sound incredible to the Roman audience. The exile’s purpose, in fact, is that of making his readers sensible to his bad condition, so that they can decide to bring him their help; this practical aim, which lies at the heart of Ovid’s exilic output as a whole, finds expression in a hyperbolical and ‘spectacular’ representation of the Pontic reality: in Tomis the exiled poet faces risks rare to find elsewhere and experiences phenomena that seem quite unnatural – and difficult to believe. Through such a representation the poet wants to show his friends and readers (not least, the emperor) that the place where he now lives is the ‘worst of all possible worlds’, a place where adynata become real and the standard laws of nature are not followed; but such an account of the Pontic reality can easily lack credibility, thus invalidating the poet’s persuasive efforts – something Ovid is well aware of. It is therefore interesting to see how the poet faces the problem of his own truthfulness (fides), an issue that is taken into consideration up to the last of Ovid’s collections.

The character of Orpheus as unhappy lover is in the Hellenistic love elegy, but it appears in Latin poetry only with the Virgilian epyllion at the end of the Georgics. The scrutiny of several texts (Virgil's ecll. 2, 6, 8 and 10; the anonymous Lament for Bion; Hor. carm. 1, 24; Prop. 2, 34, 90 – 91; Ov. amor. 3, 9, 63 – 64) allows to assume the presence of Orpheus in Gallus' elegy and to guess his figure behind the Virgilian Orpheus.

The use of the word cura in its erotic meaning in the Augustan poets can be traced back to the poetry of Cornelius Gallus; beginning from Virg. ecl. 10 and then in Propertius and Ovid, a series of references to the Gallan elegy can be reconstructed, showing the continuity of a poetic dialogue between authors and genres.

In Virgil’s Eclogues, beside the main model of Theocritus, there is a strong influence of the new Latin love elegy by Gallus. This is particularly evident in the ecll. 2, 8 and 10, Theocritean in form, but marked by a new vision of love and poetry.

The participation of the poet to the triumph and the reading of the tituli, a theme present in vv. 2-5 of the Gallus papyrus from Qaṣr Ibrîm, is polemically transformed by Prop. 3,4, where it is employed to express the indifference of the poet to war and laudatory poetry, and his elegiac choice of life is reaffirmed. Ovid in ars 1,177-228 changes it further, so that the triumph becomes an occasion for amorous encounters, but in the elegies from exile he proposes the topos in a different sense, to please the emperor.

abstract: Since Lachmann's edition (1816), there have been many discussions on the extent of Propertius' second book of Elegies. Fundamentally, nowadays, we observe two trends in this respect: one that understands that Propertius' elegies must be divided only into four books; and another, less conservative, which argues that the second book is too long, and for this reason this book would be a conflation of 2A and 2B. In this paper, I support the presupposition of the division of Book 2 into two books, by arguing that Lyne's (1998a) thesis on it is very appropriate. I understand that the elegies in Books 1 and 2 are marked by a narratio a persona, Cynthia. I consider the initial elegy of Propertius' Book 2B, 2.12, as a digression, which both recapitulates the central theme of the first two books and presents a broader poetic program than that which is presented in the previous elegies. Furthermore, I intend to observe the ekphrastic features of this digression in order to support Lyne's thesis by adding a new argument. Thus, 2.12, besides being a programmatic elegy, is also a highly innovative piece in terms of argumentation, since it presents two rhetorical mechanisms: digressio and ekphrasis.

SVMMARIVM – Hic tractantur tres quaestiones Maximianeae, de quibus docti uiri disseruerunt: qua aetate poeta uixerit, paganusne fuerit an Christianus, denique elegi eius carmen
continuum sint necne.
ABSTRACT – This article discusses three significant problems in the study of Maximian: the
most likely dating of this author, his religious views and the unity or fragmentation of his
corpus

Since Lachmann's edition (1816), there have been many discussions on the extent of Propertius' second book of Elegies. Fundamentally, nowadays, we observe two trends in this respect: one that understands that Propertius' elegies must be divided only into four books; and another, less conservative, which argues that the second book is too long, and for this reason this book would be a conflation of 2A and 2B. In this paper, I support the presupposition of the division of Book 2 into two books, by arguing that Lyne's (1998a) thesis on it is very appropriate. I understand that the elegies in Books 1 and 2 are marked by a narratio a persona, Cynthia. I consider the initial elegy of Propertius' Book 2B, 2.12, as a digression, which both recapitulates the central theme of the first two books and presents a broader poetic program than that which is presented in the previous elegies. Furthermore, I intend to observe the ekphrastic features of this digression in order to support Lyne's thesis by adding a new argument. Thus, 2.12, besides being a programmatic elegy, is also a highly innovative piece in terms of argumentation, since it presents two rhetorical mechanisms: digressio and ekphrasis.

On a toujours soupçonné que Gallus avait fourni le modèle dont s’inspiraient conjointement le propemptikòn Lycoridis de Virgile (ecl. 10, 46-49) et Prop. 1, 8, si proches. Faut-il trouver dans ce réseaux textual des traits polémiques, comme on l’a souvent dit? On peut plutôt penser que Virgilie évoquaitsimplement la fin de l’activité poétique de Gallus, tandis que Properce, utilisant le propemptikòn Lycoridis comme un pivot, inversait l’orientation propre à Gallus pour restaurer une vision positive de la poésie.

Le evidenti somiglianze tra Virg. ecl. 10, 46-49 (il cosiddetto propemptikòn Lycoridis) e Prop. 1, 8 hanno sempre lasciato sospettare un modello comune nella poesia di Gallo Il rapporto di Virgilio e di Properzio con esso non è però necessariamente polemico, come spesso si è sostenuto, ma forse l’ecloga allude alla cessazione dell’attività letteraria di Gallo, mentre l’elegia properziana potrebbe indicare il propemptikòn come momento conclusivo della produzione galliana da cui il successore riparte invertendo l’esito della vicenda e recuperando una considerazione positiva della poesia.

Il quarto libro delle elegie di Properzio si apre con un lungo componimento a due voci, nel quale una solenne dichiarazione programmatica del poeta, intenzionato a farsi cantore della romanità, viene ribaltata dal severo intervento dell'astrologo Horos, un esuberante personaggio che si professa conoscitore del volere divino e richiama Properzio alla sola missione che Apollo in persona ha stabilito per lui: comporre poesia d'amore. La trasmissione tarda e controversa del testo di Properzio, la complessità della struttura e l'oscurità di un linguaggio talvolta profetico rendono l'elegia 4, 1 un terreno particolarmente delicato per la critica testuale. Nel corso del carme, infatti, numerosi sono i passi di difficile interpretazione, sui quali l'attenzione dei filologi si è concentrata in secoli di studi: enorme è la quantità degli interventi sul testo properziano, suscitati da una tradizione manoscritta discordante o poco convincente. La stessa figura di Horos non è di facile comprensione: in passato si è visto in lui un individuo presuntuoso e inaffidabile, forse concepito per incarnare i reali detrattori di Properzio; negli ultimi decenni, tuttavia, gli studiosi si sono orientati prevalentemente verso un'interpretazione seria del personaggio, alle cui parole il poeta affiderebbe la sua ispirazione più sincera e profonda di poeta innamorato 1 .

The analysis of Virg. ecl. 2, 19-27 reveals a complex structure of imitation and contamination of models: Theocritus id. 11, but also the more ironic id. 6, and Gallus (PQI 1, 8-9). The elegant dialogue with these texts can be read as a defense of the new Latin bucolic poetry as well as the rising love elegy.

The opinion that Virgil’s ecl. 10 can have a function of ‘courtship’ to Lycoris in favour of Gallus, or to the same Gallo by Virgil is contradicted by a careful reading of the text and by a comparison with the verses of the Qaṣr Ibrîm papyrus. The eclogue appears quite deliberately assimilated in other ways to the erotic Latin elegy with which it is compared.

This paper is a translation, and reworking, of an excerpt from my article entitled “Le quatrième livre de Properce, ou le Prince contre le Poète”, RBPh 79 (2001), pp. 69-118, where I propose to see in Prop. 4.7 and 4.8 the barely concealed confession of the murder of Propertius by the (imperial) forger of the fourth book.

(a. a. 2018-2019), sotto la supervisione del Professor Carrai, che ringrazio sentitamente per la pazienza, l'interesse e la generosa disponibilità con cui ha seguito e letto il presente lavoro. Esprimo anche la mia gratitudine al Dottor D'Amanti per i preziosi consigli circa il testo di Massimiano. 1 Il nome del poeta compare all'interno del testo stesso:

Manilius Cabacius Rhallus (Mystras 1447 - Rome 1523) was still very young, when he knew the fate of exile shortly after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Moving to Italy, he settled in Rome and became known among the Italian humanists as a fine poet with a fortunate collection of poems, which was also edited in print shortly before his death (Manilii Cabacii Rhalli Iuveniles ingenii lusus, Naples 1520). Among the various motives that we find in his poetry it is very important the erotic one, which takes on from time to time the tones of the lyric or of the elegy, and in which the images and the allusions are drawn from a rare and sophisticated wealth of classical knowledge and culture. This essay aims to provide a critical examination of the third elegy of the collection, entitled Non esse deserendos amores, focusing the attention above all on its relationship with the classical models and in particular with a passage of the Metamorphoses of Ovid (Ov., Met. 14, 698-764). It also demonstrates that despite the reliance on its classical models,
this elegy preserves originality and creative autonomy.

Abstract. My paper focusses on the treatment of the triumph as a metaphor for poetic glory in Ovid. In the Augustan poetry the triumph theme is treated predominantly from a political perspective, but images and situations of the ceremony are also used from a literary point of view. Ovid in particular gives this topic original and ambiguous features.
Key words: triumph; poetic glory; Ovidian elegy; amor. 1, 2.

In 1504, Santaella published some variations on Propertius's elegies to praise Mary, the Mother of God. The different stylistic, semantic, syntactic and phonetic procedures used to achieve this, are exemplified in this article, which also deals with the chief purpose of adapting the subjects, words, as well and metric and rhythmic patterns of the ancient love's elegy to these sacred Latin poems.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the occurrences of the name Phyllis in the Latin literature. In the Augustan age, a very important cultural period, Phyllis is mentioned by several authors. She is the author of one of the letters from Ovid’s Heroides, but is also mentioned by the poet in other works as exemplum. In addition, she is a courtesan for Propertius. She is also in the center of various dibates among pastors in the Virgilian Eclouges. Moreover, she appears in Oratius’s Odes in symposial contexts. In imperial age, Martial and Ausonius mention her as courtesan. Is this Phyllis the same or is it only a case this continuous mentioning in different, but not totally extraneous, works? There exists Phyllis in the myth, but may there exist also Phyllis as courtesan, intentionally used by authors in erotic contexts? In this paper, we are going to analyze the different cases in which Phyllis was cited, from Phyllis as suicidal heroin for love, to Phyllis as the drunk courtesan and then to Phyllis as a slave that paradoxically becomes daughter of a king.