U UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: May 22, 2009 I, Patrick Timothy Beasom , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Doctor of Philosophy in Classics It is entitled: Oculi Sunt in Amore Duces: the Use of Mental Image in Latin Love Poetry Patrick Beasom Student Signature: This work and its defense approved by: Committee Chair: Kathryn Gutzwiller Holt Parker Susan Prince Approval of the electronic document: I have reviewed the Thesis/Dissertation in its final electronic format and certify that it is an accurate copy of the document reviewed and approved by the committee. Committee Chair signature: Kathryn Gutzwiller Oculi Sunt in Amore Duces: The Use of Mental Image in Latin Love Poetry A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics of the College of Arts and Sciences by Patrick Timothy Beasom B.A., University of Richmond, 2002 M.A., University of Cincinnati, 2006 May 2009 Committee Chair: Kathryn Gutzwiller, Ph.D. Abstract Propertius tells us that the eyes are our guides in love. Both he and Ovid enjoin lovers to keep silent about their love affairs. I explore the ability of poetry to make our ears and our eyes guides, and, more importantly, to connect seeing and saying, videre and narrare. The ability of words to spur a reader or listener to form mental images was long recognized by Roman and Greek rhetoricians. This project takes stock for the first time of how poets, three Roman love poets, in this case, applied vivid description and other rhetorical devices to spur their readers to form mental images of the love they read. All three poets reflect on the role played by a reader’s mental imaging in poetry in general and love poetry in particular. In my discussion of Catullus, I examine how the poet uses his control of the reader’s perspective to include or exclude him from his love affair, and to show that his love for Lesbia was something unique and worth concealing from the visual scrutiny of the outside world. The chapter on Propertius reevaluates what exactly constitutes the tempérament visuel that scholars have so often attributed to the poet. In my discussion of Ovid I examine three different ends to which he employs the language of vision and his reader’s mental imaging in the Amores, Ars Amatoria, and Metamorphoses. In the Metamorphoses Ovid makes explicit what Catullus and Propertius had implied about the power of words: their power to create images in the reader’s mind allows the reader to become a viewer, to peep into the private world of another through the window of the text. As I show throughout the dissertation, all three poets hold that telling (narrare), the purview of the poet, trumps seeing (videre), the realm of the visual artist. iii iv Abstract iii List of Illustrations vii Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Introduction and Goals of Dissertation 1 1.2 Modern Criticism and Theory 4 1.3 Ancient Criticism and Theory 9 1.3.1 Enargeia, phantasia and ekphrasis 10 1.3.2 Summary of enargeia in rhetorical treatises 11 1.3.3 Is enargeia truly visual or simply vivid description? 24 1.3.4 The use of enargeia in poetry vs. rhetoric 28 1.4 Conclusion 32 Chapter 2: Catullus 2.1 Introduction 34 2.2 The Catullan male gaze; Lesbia through Catullus' eyes (cc. 2, 3, 51) 38 2.2.1 (cc. 2, 3) 39 2.2.2 (c. 51) 43 2.3 Creating an external view of a happy couple (c. 45) 49 2.4 Catullus privatus vs. Catullus curiosus (cc. 5/7, 6/55) 58 2.4.1 (cc. 5 and 7) 58 2.4.2 (cc. 6 and 55) 67 2.5 Catullus demonstrans, Lesbia publica (cc. 37, 11) 76 2.5.1 (c. 37) 77 2.5.2 Visual separation as final separation (c. 11) 82 2.6 Catullus poeta, a window onto love (c. 67) 90 2.7 Conclusion 96 Chapter 3: Propertius 3.1 Introduction 98 v 3.2 Viewing Poetry 104 3.2.1 Visual captivity to the scripta puella (1.1) 105 3.2.2 Cynthia as visual artifact (1.3) 114 3.3 Viewing the Poet 130 3.3.1 Seeing influence: reading the poetry of Gallus (1.10) 131 3.3.2 Love poetry as artwork (2.12, 2.31/32) 139 3.4 Conclusion 164 Chapter 4: Ovid 4.1 Introduction 168 4.2 Amores 178 4.2.1 Ecce Corinna venit (Am. 1.5) 181 4.2.2 Poetic impotence as spectaculum (Am. 3.7) 191 4.3 Ars Amatoria 197 4.3.1 Confusions of viewer and viewed 198 4.3.2 Anticlimax 1 (Ars 2.703-30) 201 4.3.3 Anticlimax 2 (Ars 3.795-808) 205 4.3.4 Conclusion 210 4.4 Metamorphoses 212 4.4.1 Landscapes for rape (Io and Callisto) 215 4.4.2 Ekphrasis and the question of ars vs. natura 226 4.4.3 Tattletales’ comeuppance (the Raven and the Crow; Aglauros) 229 4.4.4 Artists and viewers (Orpheus and Pygmalion) 235 4.4.5 The Theban stories: problematic of vision and (self-)knowledge 239 4.5 Conclusion 255 General Conclusions 262 Bibliography 275 Appendix: Figures 299 vi Illustrations Figures 1. “Lesbia and her Sparrow” by Sir Edward John Poynter (1907) 2. “Catullus at Lesbia’s Right Side” by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1865) 3. “Lesbia Weeping over a Sparrow” by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1866) 4. Woman holding a rabbit in her lap 5. Clothed woman seated on couch while man reclines 6. Couple embraces on a couch while slave boy looks away 7. Couple on couch attended by slave girls 8. Mosaic depicting scene similar to Fig. 5 9. Winged Eros trying to catch a bird 10. Seated couple kissing 11. Painting of Selene 12. Silver cup depicting Mars and Venus, Side A 13. Silver cup depicting Mars and Venus, Side B 14. Mars and Venus flanked by winged erotes 15. Argus gazing at Io 16. Sleeping maenad 17. Pan discovering a maenad 18. Actaeon stumbling upon Diana’s bath 19. Line drawing of Actaeon spying on Diana vii 1.1 Introduction and Goals of Dissertation Viewing and the gaze played important roles in Roman social, political, and literary culture.1 From the amphitheater, to an elite man’s comportment in the Forum, to the opulent displays of art within the confines of wealthy villas, and even the very layout of those villas, which direct a visitor’s gaze within the house, Roman culture was keenly interested in seeing and being seen. Recent work on Roman literature, particularly poetry, has demonstrated that even within text, vision and the gaze were important issues. This is especially true in the amatory texts of the late Republican and Augustan periods where, as in their Greek predecessors, the eyes are conduits for love, and the possession of an objectifying gaze is an important aspect of the gender dynamics at work within the poem. In this dissertation I study an unexplored aspect of visuality in Roman love poetry, focusing on the creation of mental images in the mind of the reader, the techniques used to accomplish this, and the reasons behind a poet’s use of his reader’s mental imaging.2 In addition to the reader’s formation of mental images induced by the text, this dissertation takes stock of poets’ use of the language of vision (words of seeing, references to the eyes, etc.), and the play of narratorial viewpoints within their poems. Although many other Latin authors of prose and verse also employ the devices examined in this dissertation, I focus only on the poetry of Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid.3 These three have been singled out because they 1In recent years, the study of Roman visual culture has expanded greatly. See e.g. Coleman 1990; Bergmann and Kondoleon 1999; Benediktson 2000; Elsner 2000; Goldhill 2001b; Fredrick 2002; also Leach 1988, 7; Segal 1994, 257-58; and Morales 2004, 8-35. The strong emphasis on visuality attributed to Roman culture does not necessarily imply that the Romans were consequently less aural or tactile, however. 2 Throughout, I use mental image and visualization interchangeably to denote the product of forming an image in the mind’s eye, and their verbal counterparts to denote the producing of the image. When I use the term vision, the physical act of seeing is generally meant rather than any social abstraction of political or aesthetic ideology. 3 Virgil’s use of vision in the Aeneid has been studied in a recent book by Smith (2005). Vasaly (1993) has examined Cicero’s use of mental imaging and the emotional resonance of imagined places. 1 use viewing and mental imaging in distinct ways, and because they all draw special attention to their use of vision and highlight the role it plays in their individual styles of poetry.4 In the case of Catullus, I attempt to show that the poet uses visual cues and his reader’s mental imaging to present a view of his new “romantic” conception of love, and to heighten the emotional response to and understanding of that new type of love and its subsequent betrayal by Lesbia. In discussing Propertius, whose propensity to use imagistic language derived from contemporary visual art has often been noted, I examine his use of vision and visualization as a means of exploring the link between love and poetry.