DOCSLIB.ORG

Brill's Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Brill's Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception Edited by Manuel Baumbach and Silvio Bär LEIDEn • BOSTON 2012 Cover illustration: Europa und der Stier, 340-320 BC, ANSA IV 189, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brill’s companion to Greek and Latin epyllion and its reception / edited by Manuel Baumbach and Silvio Bär. pages. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-90-04-21432-3 (hardback : alk. paper)—ISBN (invalid) 978-90-04-23305-8 (e-book) 1. Greek poetry—History and criticism. I. Baumbach, Manuel. II. Bär, Silvio. PA3061.B75 2012 880.9’001—dc23 2012017986 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bccs This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1877-3357 ISBN 978 90 04 21432 3 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 23305 8 (e-book) Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. CONTENTS A Short Introduction to the Ancient Epyllion ....................................... ix Manuel Baumbach & Silvio Bär Contributors ..................................................................................................... xvii Abbreviations ................................................................................................... xxv PART 1 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE TERM AND CONCEPT OF THE EPYLLION Before the Epyllion: Concepts and Texts ................................................ 3 Virgilio Masciadri On the Origins of the Modern Term “Epyllion”: Some Revisions to a Chapter in the History of Classical Scholarship ...................... 29 Stefan Tilg Catullus 64: The Perfect Epyllion? ............................................................. 55 Gail Trimble PART 2 THE ARCHAIC AND PRE-HELLENISTIC PERIOD The Songs of Demodocus: Compression and Extension in Greek Narrative Poetry ......................................................................................... 83 Richard Hunter Demodokos’ Song of Ares and Aphrodite in Homer’s Odyssey (8.266–366): An Epyllion? Agonistic Performativity and Cultural Metapoetics ................................................................................ 111 Anton Bierl vi contents Borderline Experiences with Genre: The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite between Epic, Hymn and Epyllic Poetry ........................ 135 Manuel Baumbach Rhapsodic Hymns and Epyllia .................................................................... 149 Ivana Petrovic A Proto-Epyllion? The Pseudo-Hesiodic Shield and The Poetics of Deferral ......................................................................................................... 177 Peter Bing PART 3 THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD Pindaric Narrative Technique in the Hellenistic Epyllion ................. 201 Christine Luz The Hecale and Hellenistic Conceptions of Short Hexameter Narratives ..................................................................................................... 221 Kathryn Gutzwiller Miniaturizing the Huge: Hercules on a Small Scale (Theocritus Idylls 13 and 24) ................................................................... 245 Benjamin Acosta-Hughes Herakles in Bits and Pieces: Id. 25 in the Corpus Theocriteum ......... 259 Thomas A. Schmitz Achilles at Scyros, and One of His Fans: The Epithalamium of Achilles and Deidameia (Buc. Gr. 157–158 Gow) ............................... 283 Marco Fantuzzi PART 4 THE LATE ROMAN REPUBLIC AND THE AUGUSTAN PERIOD “εἰς ἔπη καὶ ἐλεγείας ἀνάγειν”: The Erotika Pathemata of Parthenius of Nicaea ................................................................................. 309 Jacqueline J.H. Klooster contents vii A Virgo Infelix: Calvus’ Io vis-à-vis Other Cow-And-Bull Stories ...... 333 Regina Höschele The Tenth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses as Orpheus’ Epyllion .... 355 Ulrich Eigler PART 5 THE IMPERIAL PERIOD The Fast and the Furious: Triphiodorus’ Reception of Homer in the Capture of Troy ............................................................................... 371 Vincent Tomasso Musaeus, Hero and Leander: Between Epic and Novel ....................... 411 Nicola Nina Dümmler “Museum of Words”: Christodorus, the Art of Ekphrasis and the Epyllic Genre ............................................................................................... 447 Silvio Bär The Motif of the Rape of Europa: Intertextuality and Absurdity of the Myth in Epyllion and Epic Insets ............................................. 473 Peter Kuhlmann PART 6 THE MIDDLE AGES AND BEYOND “Epyllion” or “Short Epic” in the Latin Literature of the Middle Ages? ............................................................................................... 493 Carmen Cardelle de Hartmann & Peter Stotz Short Mythological Epic in Neo-Latin Literature ................................. 519 Martin Korenjak Robert Burns’ Tam O’ Shanter: A Lallans Epyllion? ............................. 537 Ewen L. Bowie viii contents Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 563 General Index ................................................................................................... 597 Index Locorum ................................................................................................ 617 Index of Selected Greek Words .................................................................. 639 A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE ANCIENT EPYLLION Manuel Baumbach & Silvio Bär “Epyllion” (τὸ ἐπύλλιον) is an established generic term within modern clas- sical scholarship.1 Derived from “epos” (τὸ ἔπος), the diminutive is most commonly used to denote shorter hexameter poems with a focus on sin- gle episodes in the life of a mythical figure.2 However, the corpus of texts labelled “epyllia” varies; different generic characteristics are applied, and the birth of the genre is a matter of dispute: most scholars regard it as a Hellenistic invention,3 whereas some point to possible archaic and clas- sical predecessors. Part of the problem is the fact that we do not have any traces for a generic usage of the term in antiquity, and no reflections about a shorter epic can be found in classical literary criticism. This does not, of course, imply that such a genre did not exist at all,4 but in dealing with ancient epyllia we have to rely on modern taxonomies and theo- retical approaches towards this genre.5 However, these approaches do not necessarily reconstruct an ancient generic consciousness of what an epyl- lion was or had to be, but they rather attempt to construct the history of a certain literary form and may sometimes reveal more about the scholar than about the object of his or her investigation. As a consequence, the proposed definitions of what exactly an epyllion is have to be tested against each other and against the literary tradition they try to explain.6 Both the values and limits of this genre can be seen in asking the question 1 Cf. e.g. Most (1982), Wolff (1988) and Tilg (this volume). 2 Cf. e.g. Gutzwiller (1981) 3, Courtney (1996) 550 (“a narrative poem of up to c. 600 hexameters, usually about an episode from the life of a mythological hero or heroine”), Fantuzzi (1998a) and Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 191. 3 Most lately Wasyl (2011) 22. 4 For the analogous case of the ancient novel cf. Selden (1994) and Ruiz-Montero (22003) 32–37. The existence of a genre “epyllion” was denied by Allen (1940) and (1958). 5 On the problems concerned with defining antique literary genres from a historical perspective, and questions relating to their establishment within literary societies, cf., amongst others, Nauta (1990) (on Bucolic poetry). On the classification of genres in gen- eral, cf. Hempfer (1973) and Zymner (2003). 6 In this regard, Allen’s (1958) 517 criticism of the whole concepts of an “epyllic” genre still provides a challenge: “Certainly, if seven or eight Classical poems are supposed to belong to a distinctive minor genre, it is not too much to ask that they should have some recognizable qualities in common.” x manuel baumbach & silvio bär of how the classification of a text as an “epyllion” affects or enriches our reading of a specific ancient text. The present volume, which is the result of a conference hosted by the editors in Zurich in 2009, takes this question as a starting point for investi- gating both the history of scholarship on the epyllion and the perspectives and limits of applying its generic characteristics to ancient texts and their reception. The conditions for such an investigation could not be more favourable: at least five
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Class, Nation and the Folk in the Works of Gustav Freytag (1816-1895)
    Private Lives and Collective Destinies: Class, Nation and the Folk in the Works of Gustav Freytag (1816-1895) Dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Benedict Keble Schofield Department of Germanic Studies University of Sheffield June 2009 Contents Abstract v Acknowledgements vi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Literature and Tendenz in the mid-19th Century 1 1.2 Gustav Freytag: a Literary-Political Life 2 1.2.1 Freytag's Life and Works 2 1.2.2 Critical Responses to Freytag 4 1.3 Conceptual Frameworks and Core Terminology 10 1.4 Editions and Sources 1 1 1.4.1 The Gesammelte Werke 1 1 1.4.2 The Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben 12 1.4.3 Letters, Manuscripts and Archival Material 13 1.5 Structure of the Thesis 14 2 Political and Aesthetic Trends in Gustav Freytag's Vormiirz Poetry 17 2.1 Introduction: the Path to Poetry 17 2.2 In Breslau (1845) 18 2.2.1 In Breslau: Context, Composition and Theme 18 2.2.2 Politically Responsive Poetry 24 2.2.3 Domestic and Narrative Poetry 34 2.2.4 Poetic Imagination and Political Engagement 40 2.3 Conclusion: Early Concerns and Future Patterns 44 3 Gustav Freytag's Theatrical Practice in the 1840s: the Vormiirz Dramas 46 3.1 Introduction: from Poetry to Drama 46 3.2 Die Brautfahrt, oder Kunz von der Rosen (1841) 48 3.2.1 Die Brautfahrt: Context, Composition and Theme 48 3.2.2 The Hoftheater Competition of 1841: Die Brautfahrt as Comedy 50 3.2.3 Manipulating the Past: the Historical Background to Die Brautfahrt 53 3.2.4 The Question of Dramatic Hero: the Function ofKunz 57 3.2.5 Sub-Conclusion: Die
    [Show full text]
  • Homer: an Arabic Portrait1
    Edin Muftić Homer: An Arabic portrait1 Homer is rightfully seen as the first teacher of Hellenism, the poet who educated the Greek, who in turn educated Europe. But, as is well known, Europe doesn’t have a monopoly on Greek heritage. It was also present in the Islamic tradition, where it manifested itself differently. Apart from phi- losophy, mathematics, astronomy, medicine and pharmacology, Greek poetry, even if usually not translated, was also widely read among the Arab-Islamic intellectual elite. The author analyses the extent to which Homer’s works circulated, how well known were his poetics, and the influence his verses exerted during the heyday of Classical Arab-Islamic civilization. Keywords: Homer; translation movement; Al-Biruni; arabic poetry; Al-Farabi; Averroes INTRODUCTION The Greek and Arab epic tradition have much in common. Themes of tribal enmity, invasions and plunder, abduction of women, revenge, heroism, chivalry and love feature prom- inently in both traditions. While the Greeks have Hercules, Perseus, Theseus, Odysseus, Jason or Achilles, the Arabs have ʻAntar bin Šaddād (the “Arab Achilles”), Sayf bin ī Yazan, Az-Zīr Sālim and many others. When it comes to the actual performance of poetry, similarities be- Ḏ tween the two traditions are even greater. Homeric aoidos playing his lyre has a direct coun- terpart in Arab rawin playing his rababa. The Arab wandering poet often shares the fate of his Greek colleague (Imruʼ al-Qays, arafa and Al-Aʻšá, and Abū Nuwās and Al-Mutanabbī are the most famous examples). Greek tyrants who were famous for hosting poets like Ibycus, Anacre- Ṭ on, Simonides, Bacchylides or Pindar, while expelling others like Alcaeus, have a royal counter- part in An-Nuʻmān bin al-Mun ir, the ruler of Hira.
    [Show full text]
  • Philostratus' Imagines 2.18
    Philostratus’ Imagines 2.18: Words and Images Vasiliki Kostopoulou CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT has been written about ec- phrasis during the time of the Second Sophistic,1 a period which, by placing a high premium on public A 2 displays and spectacles in general, stimulated the development of literary descriptions into rhetorical devices included in the technical handbooks (progymnasmata) of the sophists.3 A marked theoretical interest in defining ecphrasis is indeed easily attested in the Imperial period: Theon in the first century, Hermogenes of Tarsus in the second, Aphthonius and Nicolaus in the fourth and fifth all with minor variations emphasized the enargeia, 1 S. Bartsch, Decoding the Ancient Novel: The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius (Princeton 1989), is a classic discussion of ecphrasis in the novels. For ecphrasis in general the fundamental work remains P. Friedlander, Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentarius (Berlin 1912). For recent scholarly approaches, see among others J. Elsner (ed.), “The Verbal and the Visual: Cultures of Ekphrasis in Antiquity,” Special issue, Ramus 31 (2002), and S. Bartsch, J. Elsner (eds.), “Ekphrasis,” Special issue, CP 102 (2007), and the abundant bibliographies cited there. 2 See e.g. J. Onians, “Abstract and Imagination in Late Antiquity,” Art History 3 (1980) 1–24; S. Price, Rituals and Power (Cambridge 1984) 170– 206, although focused in particular on the impact of imperial image, high- lights the concentrated attention paid to the visual in the Roman world; S. Goldhill, “The Erotic Eye: Visual Stimulation and Cultural Conflict,” in S. Goldhill (ed.), Being Greek under Rome ( Cambridge 2001) 154–194, at 159– 160, discusses in particular the figure of the pepaideumenos theates whom he places within a “culture of display.” 3 On the progymnasmata see G.
    [Show full text]
  • The Elements of Comedy and Parody in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus
    SYMBOLAE PHILOLOGORUM POSNANIENSIUM GRAECAE ET LATINAE XXVII/3 • 2017 pp. 59–71. ISSN 0302-7384 dOI: 10.14746/sppgl.2017.XXVII.3.6 Anna Maria Lasek Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań THE ELEMENTS OF COMEdY ANd PAROdY IN THE DIONYSIACA OF NONNUS abstraCt. Lasek Anna Maria, The elements of comedy and parody in the dionysiaca of Nonnus. In this article the author presents the elements of comedy and parody in the dionysiaca of Nonnus. The analysis of the passages excerpted from the dionysiaka shows that the composition of Nonnus’ poem is based on the principle of generic variety. keywords: Nonnus; dionysiaka; parody; Ares; Aphrodite. Scholars agree that literary genres have a certain momentum, and that they change. Any author within a genre develops and transforms it to create a work combining traditional genre features with new and unexpected elements.1 This way, every implementation of a genre means bringing it up to date and sets anew its boundaries. This phenomenon is particularly clearly visible in a work written by Nonnus of Panopolis in late Antiquity. As its author highlights in the proemium, this work is based on the principle of poetic variety – varietas (ποικιλία) This predilection for variety was reflected in the poet’s style, the richness of synonyms appearing in the dionysiaca; his striving for diversification in presenting characters, situations and things; and the composition of the work.2 Undoubtedly, as results from the same principle of diversity – ποικιλία3 the term epos is not sufficient for dionysiaca. In the entire body of the work, one can trace elements of various genres, and even entire passages bearing their characteristics so clearly that scholars have not hesitated to identify them with idyll, epigram, etc.
    [Show full text]
  • And Hesiod's Theogony
    MINUTE PARTICULAR Blake’s “Introduction” and Hesiod’s Theogony By Kurt Fosso Kurt Fosso ([email protected]) is an associate profes- sor of English at Lewis & Clark College, where he teach- es courses on British romanticism, literary theory, and classical studies. He is the author of Buried Commu- nities: Wordsworth and the Bonds of Mourning (SUNY Press, 2004) and, recently, “Oedipus Crux: Reasonable Doubt in Oedipus the King” (College Literature, summer 2012). His current research examines romantic-era de- pictions of animals and human animality. Piper sit thee down and write In a book that all may read …. (“Introduction” to Songs of Innocence, E 7)1 1 ORTHROP Frye was, so far as I can find, the first N critic to shine a light on the Greek poet Hesiod’s in- fluence upon William Blake. Specifically, Frye judged the divine characters Tharmas and Enion from The Four Zoas (c. 1796) to be “probably the Thaumas and Eione of Hes- iod’s Theogony.”2 Kathleen Raine, following upon Frye, in turn detected the Theogony’s presence in Blake’s The Book of Urizen (1794),3 and recently Paul Miner has uncovered sig- nificant Hesiodic allusions in The Book of Ahania (1795).4 Songs of Innocence copy B (1789), frontispiece. Lessing J. The Theogony’s influence can similarly be traced in the di- Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress. Image © the vine struggles described in the continental prophecies William Blake Archive <http://www.blakearchive.org>. America and Europe (1793, 1794). 2 Blake would likely have read Hesiod’s eighth-century ge- nealogy of the gods in Thomas Cooke’s English translation (1728),5 the first, and have found there a useful source not only for the names and attributes of those Greek deities 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Optima Carme: a Reexamination of the Nurse in the Ciris By
    OPTIMA CARME: A REEXAMINATION OF THE NURSE IN THE CIRIS BY CASEY LYNN HUGHES Submitted to the graduate degree program in Classics and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Chairperson: Dr. Tara Welch Dr. Anthony Corbeill Dr. Pamela Gordon Date defended: 10 May 2017 The Thesis Committee for CASEY LYNN HUGHES certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: OPTIMA CARME: A REEXAMINATION OF THE NURSE IN THE CIRIS Chairperson: Dr. Tara Welch Date approved: 10 May 2017 ii ABSTRACT This thesis examines the Ciris, a Pseudo-Vergilian epyllion of uncertain date, and analyzes the figure of the nurse Carme, a character who has largely been ignored in previous studies of the poem. The Ciris narrates the story of Scylla of Megara and how she betrayed her father, King Nisus, because of her love for Minos, King of Crete. While nurses are typical stock characters in Greek and Roman literature, I will show how the character of Carme becomes more than Scylla’s nurse. Although she embodies the qualities of many nurses from various genres before her, the Ciris poet also expands her role, briefly transforming an otherwise minor character into a second heroine. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction 1 Chapter Two: Influential Nurses 11 Chapter Three: The Heroine Nurse 32 Conclusion 53 Bibliography 57 Appendix A 60 Appendix B 61 iv Chapter One Introduction The Ciris is a first century B.C. or first century A.D. epyllion about Scylla, who betrays her father Nisus, king of Megara, because of her love for Minos, king of Crete.
    [Show full text]
  • UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Homer's Roads Not Taken
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Homer’s Roads Not Taken Stories and Storytelling in the Iliad and Odyssey A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Classics by Craig Morrison Russell 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Homer’s Roads Not Taken Stories and Storytelling in the Iliad and Odyssey by Craig Morrison Russell Doctor of Philosophy in Classics University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Alex C. Purves, Chair This dissertation is a consideration of how narratives in the Iliad and Odyssey find their shapes. Applying insights from scholars working in the fields of narratology and oral poetics, I consider moments in Homeric epic when characters make stories out of their lives and tell them to each other. My focus is on the concept of “creativity” — the extent to which the poet and his characters create and alter the reality in which they live by controlling the shape of the reality they mould in their storytelling. The first two chapters each examine storytelling by internal characters. In the first chapter I read Achilles’ and Agamemnon’s quarrel as a set of competing attempts to create the authoritative narrative of the situation the Achaeans find themselves in, and Achilles’ retelling of the quarrel to Thetis as part of the move towards the acceptance of his version over that of Agamemnon or even the Homeric Narrator that occurs over the course of the epic. In the second chapter I consider the constant storytelling that [ii ] occurs at the end of the Odyssey as a competition between the families of Odysseus and the suitors to control the narrative that will be created out of Odysseus’s homecoming.
    [Show full text]
  • Rethinking Ovid: a Collection of Latin Poetry and Commentary on Composition Anna C
    Macalester College DigitalCommons@Macalester College Classics Honors Projects Classics Department May 2006 Rethinking Ovid: A Collection of Latin Poetry and Commentary on Composition Anna C. Everett Macalester College, [email protected] Anna Everett Beek Macalester College Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/classics_honors Recommended Citation Everett, Anna C. and Beek, Anna Everett, "Rethinking Ovid: A Collection of Latin Poetry and Commentary on Composition" (2006). Classics Honors Projects. Paper 1. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/classics_honors/1 This Honors Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Classics Department at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Classics Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RethinkingRethinking Ovid: A Collection of Latin Poetry and Commentary on Composition Anna Everett Beek Advised by Nanette Scott Goldman Department of Classics, Macalester College 1 May 2006 Cunct rum Chrone impl cbilissime d vum, scr bend vers s t bi ni hil referunt. TableTable of Contents Introduction 4 Sources and Inspiration Cydippe 7 Dryope 10 Other References 11 Composition 12 The Chosen Meters 17 Poetic Devices 19 Diction and Grammar in Chronologica l Context: Linguistic Matters 22 Imitat io n and Interpretation 26 Historical Background: Ceos 29 Historical Background: Women 31 Conclusion 34 The Poetry Cydippe 35 Dryope 39 Bibliography 41 2 AcknowledgementsAcknowledgements I could not have completed this project without the help of various wonder ful people. While I am certain they know who they are, I must extend much gratitude to these people, and if I have produced any work of quality, these people deserve credit first.
    [Show full text]
  • The Intertextual Dynamics of Colluthus' Abduction of Helen
    The Intertextual Dynamics of Colluthus’ Abduction of Helen by Geoffrey Harmsworth A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in Classical Studies Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2018 © Geoffrey Harmsworth 2018 Author’s Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any re- quired final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract This thesis is devoted to an intertextual study of Colluthus’ late antique epyllion, the Abduction of Helen. Colluthus is a poet whose reputation has long suffered, but is currently under rehabilitation, and the aim of this study is to build on recent scholarship in order to develop a fuller appreciation of Colluthus’ multi- faceted engagement with literary traditions and his allusive technique. Chapters are devoted to linguistic allusion, the intertextuality of genre, and the thematic intertextuality of the abduction narrative. In each chapter, a different approach to allusion and intertextuality reveals a pervasive pattern in Colluthus’ allusive poetics. Colluthus, it will be shown, was a poet who delighted in irony, but it is an irony which is almost always dependent on its relationships to model texts, generic traditions, and thematic motifs. Through the various allusive devices studied here, we find that the poet frequently creates expectations in the learned reader for the directions his narrative will take, only to deny them: he builds a pastoral world through generic parallels, only to leave it behind; he frequently alludes to the motifs and stories of abduction in classical literature, only to frame the “abduction” of Helen as a mutual romantic encounter.
    [Show full text]
  • The Lament for Adonis: Questions of Authorship
    The Lament For Adonis: Questions Of Authorship The Lament for Adonis or Epitaphios Adonidos has since the mid-sixteenth century commonly been known as 'Bion 1'. In editions of Greek Bucolic it comes along with four long and four short poems allegedly by Moschus, a number of short poems or fragments by Bion of Smyrna, and a long fragment (32 lines) also since 1568 often attributed to him. This subcollection is sometimes conveniently called 'Minor Bucolic': 'minor' in relation to the much bulkier surviving work of Theocritus and 'bucolic' apparently only by association with him and through the clear reputation of Moschus and Bion in ancient times as bucolic writers. Editions of Minor Bucolic, i.e. Moschus and Bion published other than as an appendix to Theocritus (though sometimes combined with Callimachus, Musaeus, or 'the Nine Poetesses'), appeared in 1565 (Meetkercke, Bruges), 1568 (Orsini, Rome), 1655 (Whitford, London), 1686 (Longepierre, Paris), and then copiously in the eighteenth century; I count at least eight in the years 1746-1795. Since then, following the example of Ludolf Ahrens and August Meineke in the mid-nineteenth century, it has been the practice to re-attach Moschus and Bion to Theocritus,1 thus rein­ forcing the supposedly bucolic character of poems printed under their names. What is 'bucolic' about the Epitaphios Adonidos? or about Bion, will be ex­ amined in this paper, as will the correctness of its ascription to Bion of Smyrna, since such ascription has no ancient authority. The Epitaphios Adonidos (hereafter Ep. Ad) is transmitted to us in only two primary manuscripts, namely Vaticanus Graecus 1824 (= V) and Parisinus Graecus 2832 (=Tr).
    [Show full text]
  • The Italian Verse of Milton May 2018
    University of Nevada, Reno The Italian Verse of Milton A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Francisco Nahoe Dr James Mardock/Dissertation Advisor May 2018 © 2018 Order of Friars Minor Conventual Saint Joseph of Cupertino Province All Rights Reserved UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL We recommend that the dissertation prepared under our supervision by Francisco Nahoe entitled The Italian Verse of Milton be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY James Mardock PhD, Adviser Eric Rasmussen PhD, Committee Member Lynda Walsh PhD, Committee Member Donald Hardy PhD (emeritus), Committee Member Francesco Manca PhD (emeritus), Committee Member Jaime Leaños PhD, Graduate School Representative David Zeh PhD, Dean, Graduate School May 2018 i Abstract The Italian verse of Milton consists of but six poems: five sonnets and the single stanza of a canzone. Though later in life the poet will celebrate conjugal love in Book IV of Paradise Lost (1667) and in Sonnet XXIII Methought I saw my late espousèd saint (1673), in 1645 Milton proffers his lyric of erotic desire in the Italian language alone. His choice is both unusual and entirely fitting. How did Milton, born in Cheapside, acquire Italian at such an elevated level of proficiency? When did he write these poems and where? Is the woman about whom he speaks an historical person or is she merely the poetic trope demanded by the genre? Though relatively few critics have addressed the style of Milton’s Italian verse, an astonishing range of views has nonetheless emerged from their assessments.
    [Show full text]
  • The Poems of Catullus As They Went to the Printer for the first Time, in Venice 400 Years Ago
    1.Catullus, Poems 1/12/05 2:52 PM Page 1 INTRODUCTION LIFE AND BACKGROUND We know very little for certain about Catullus himself, and most of that has to be extrapolated from his own work, always a risky procedure, and nowadays with the full weight of critical opinion against it (though this is always mutable, and there are signs of change in the air). On the other hand, we know a great deal about the last century of the Roman Republic, in which his short but intense life was spent, and about many of the public figures, both literary and political, whom he counted among his friends and enemies. Like Byron, whom in ways he resembled, he moved in fashionable circles, was radical without being constructively political, and wrote poetry that gives the overwhelming impression of being generated by the public aªairs, literary fashions, and aristocratic private scandals of the day. How far all these were fictionalized in his poetry we shall never know, but that they were pure invention is unlikely in the extreme: what need to make up stories when there was so much splendid material to hand? Obviously we can’t take what Catullus writes about Caesar or Mamurra at face value, any more than we can By- ron’s portraits of George III and Southey in “The Vision of Judgement,” or Dry- den’s of James II and the Duke of Buckingham in “Absalom and Achitophel.” Yet it would be hard to deny that in every case the poetic version contained more than a grain of truth.
    [Show full text]