THE POETICS OF KINSHIP: NARRATIVE AND POETIC TECHNIQUE IN VERGIL, OVID, AND STATIUS by CLAYTON ANDREW SCHROER (Under the Direction of Sarah Spence) ABSTRACT This thesis traces the development of the theme of kinship and posits that it is connected to the virtue of pietas in the Latin epics of Vergil, Ovid, and Statius. In the Aeneid, the theme of kinship operates on two complementary levels: the literary and narrative. Even as the nature of pietas becomes more problematic in the narrative, so also Vergil’s devotion to his literary forefathers diminishes as the epic develops. In the Metamorphoses, Ovid responds to Vergil’s use of kinship by focusing on the taboos of incest and familial violence. Ovid shows that these two transgressions of pietas represent narrative progress and composition while also symbolizing different modes of poetic allusion. Statius’ epic rewrites these two earlier epics, simultaneously undermining the ethical system of the Aeneid and calling into question Ovid’s claim of literary immortality at the end of the Metamorphoses. INDEX WORDS: Vergil, Aeneid, Ovid, Metamorphoses, Statius, Thebaid, allusion, intertextuality, kinship, pietas, epic. THE POETICS OF KINSHIP: NARRATIVE AND POETIC TECHNIQUE IN VERGIL, OVID, AND STATIUS by CLAYTON ANDREW SCHROER BA, Xavier University, 2011 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2013 © 2013 Clayton Andrew Schroer All Rights Reserved THE POETICS OF KINSHIP: NARRATIVE AND POETIC TECHNIQUE IN VERGIL, OVID, AND STATIUS by CLAYTON ANDREW SCHROER Major Professor: Sarah Spence Committee: T. Keith Dix Michael C.J. Putnam Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2013 iv DEDICATION MEIS PARENTIBUS v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have helped me in completing this project. To Nicholas Rynearson, Charles Platter, Naomi Norman, James Anderson, Erika Hermanowicz, Jordan Amy, Kevin Scahill, Braden Mechley, and Sam Baroody I give my deepest thanks. Among these, Kevin Scahill and Jordan Amy deserve special mention. Few can say that one of their ideal readers sits beside them in the same office, and Kevin has been more than giving of his time. He has threatened to read this thesis in toto; I can only hope that I have made that task as least arduous as possible. Jordan read many portions of the thesis and saved me from more errors than I would like to remember. In my committee I have found the perfect balance of friendship and guidance. Keith Dix has, for one chapter of this thesis, suspended his suspicion of Silver Age poetry, and I must thank him for that since his criticism throughout this project has improved at many points what would have otherwise been unsound readings at best. Michael Putnam, a mentor in absentia to me for so long, has been the best reader an aspiring scholar of poetry could hope for; no thanks in such an abbreviated space can do justice to the thoughtful help he has given to this project and to me (who was not even a name to him less than a year ago). I can only hope one day to become half the scholar and person that Sarah Spence is. For the countless hours I spent in her office developing nascent ideas, I thank her for her time and apologize for being so greedy with it. For the ever timely encouragement and support that defines her guidance of me and so many others, a million thanks would not begin to be enough. The virtues which remain are in spite of me and arise mostly from the help of those mentioned here; any faults that remain are mine alone. vi The thanks owed to my parents are too numerous to be mentioned here, and I have recorded my debt to them on a separate page. I have saved the best for last, and all that remains is to express the inexpressible thanks due to Jennifer Stanull. She has believed in me when I could not come to believe in myself, has acquiesced to many nights of Borderlands and SitComs, and has generally proven herself to be the kindest, most thoughtful, and most diligent person I know. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 THE PRODIGAL SON: VERGIL ON BREAKING EXPECTATIONS .....................3 2 KINSHIP AND POIESIS IN THE METAMORPHOSES: HOW TO RELATE (TO) THE PAST ...................................................................................................................33 3 THE END OF THE LINE: THE THEBAID AND THE REINTERPRETATION OF THE AENEID AND METAMORPHOSES ..................................................................60 REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................92 1 Introduction I argue in this thesis that kinship and family are symbolic of the development of poetry: Homer is Vergil’s literary father, Vergil is Ovid’s, and so on. This is, I think, a very Roman way of understanding the relationship between texts. For example, Quintilian likens literary genres to the Roman familia. When he describes the Roman textual critics who came before him, Quintilian describes their stern editorial practices (Inst.Orat. 1.4.3): quidem ita severe sunt usi veteres grammatici ut non versus modo censoria quadam virgula notare et libros qui falso viderentur inscripti tamquam subditos summovere familia permiserint sibi, sed auctores alios in ordinem redegerint, alios omnino exemerint numero. Indeed the old grammatici made use of such severity that not only did they allow themselves to mark with a certain condemning mark verses and books which seemed to have been written spuriously, just as if they removed those in their care from the family, but also they brought some authors back into the canon, and others they quickly excised all together. I am unaware of an example in which the understanding of a genre as a family is so explicitly codified in Greek literature.1 Certain Greek authors use similar metaphors. In Plato’s Symposium, for example, Diotima claims that men reproduce and protect their offspring out of a desire for some type of immortality (207b-207d); Diotima concludes, however, that in lieu of children many men opt to produce poetry in order to earn undying glory for all time (208c: καὶ κλέος ἐς τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον ἀθάνατον καταθέσθαι). To Diotima, poetry is a type of poetic offspring, but nowhere is this relationship as explicitly codified as it is in Quintilian. 1 My understanding of the significance of this passage in the Symposium has benefitted from the insights of Charles Platter. I should note that I do not wish to claim that kinship is not an important theme in the Greek corpus. Wohl (2005) 153, although primarily focused on tragedy, serves as a good starting point for those interested in kinship in Greek literature. 2 And the metaphor of the poetic family is not limited to Quintilian. In a variation of the theme, Statius in the Silvae portrays Lucan as the son of Calliope (Silv. 2.7.36-38): natum protinus atque humum per ipsam primo murmure dulce vagientem blando Calliope sinu recepit. And Calliope took him in her pleasant lap as soon as he was born while still on the ground2 and wailing sweetly with his first murmur. As Carole Newlands asserts, Calliope accepts the poetically gifted (dulce vagientem) as her son (cf. Silv. 2.7.41: puer).3 Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, by accepting the baby Lucan into her family also accepts Lucan as a representative of her own genre, epic poetry. In this case, as in Quintilian, a genre of poetry is likened to a family unit and poetic authority is translated into the image of family descent. In connection with this theme, Mariana Ventura has also argued that in Silvae 5.3, a poem posthumously published and dedicated to Statius’ recently deceased father, the poet likens his genetic father to his literary father, Vergil.4 Therefore the metaphor of literary genre as family is a particularly Roman method of thinking of literary history. Given the key role that familial devotion, or pietas, plays in the Aeneid and post-Vergilian epic, I posit that there is a relationship in Latin epic beginning with Vergil between the two modes of kinship, the narrative/thematic and the literary. By observing the dynamics of this relationship it is possible to observe not only how poets relate to one another within a tradition, but also how they do so by redefining and subverting the themes and values established by their predecessors. 2 See Newlands (2011) ad Silv. 2.7.36-38. 3 Newlands (2011) ad Silv. 2.7.36-40. 4 See Ventura (2010) passim. 3 CHAPTER 1 THE PRODIGAL SON: VERGIL ON BREAKING EXPECTATIONS Before Vergil introduces his hero by name, he characterizes him by his pietas (Aen. 1.10: insignem pietate virum). Aeneas’ identity is not defined by his name or by who he is as an individual; rather, Vergil shows his hero as a man subordinated to the demands placed upon him by outside forces. As the plot of the Aeneid progresses, Aeneas’ devotion to the demands of pietas weakens; Oliver Lyne summarizes the inconsistencies of pietas well: Aeneas has to learn to become someone dutiful and subordinate, the heros pius, a paradoxical and unblessed role. And he does so of course at great cost and far from consistently. How could it be otherwise? Such is the character and situation of Aeneas, potentially defined even in his first scene, with the assistance of allusion, the process of comparing and contrasting: a hero in a role shot through with paradox and pain.5 Lyne’s point, in part, is that Aeneas’ pietas, his defining quality, is one based on a paradoxical contrast. Aeneas’ definition as a hero is qualified: he seeks glory, but not the individualistic glory sought by his Homeric predecessors.