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POETA LE VIS! OVID's ELEGIAC NEQUITL4 by Catherine Feeley For

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POETA LE VIS! OVID's ELEGIAC NEQUITL4 by Catherine Feeley For POETA LE VIS! OVID'S ELEGIAC NEQUITL4 by Catherine Feeley Submitted in partial fiilfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia Jdy 1999 Q Copyright by Catherine Feeley, 1999 National Library Bibliothèque nationale 1*1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington OttawaON KlA ON4 O(tawaON K1AûN4 canada canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence aliowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or seil reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microforni, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de rnicrofiche/fiùn, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiorn it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or othewise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Table of Contents List of Tables ............................................................................ v Abstract ................................................................................... vi .. List of Abbreviations Used ............................................................ vil ... Acknowledgements..................................................................... vu1 Introduction ........................................................................... -1-6 Chapter 1 . Ovid as Poefa Levis ....................................................... 7. 12 Chapter 2. Omnia Non VincifAmor: Ovid's Scepticism About the Power of Love ............................................... .1 3.23 Chapter 3 . The hsincenty of Ovid's Amator ...................................... -24-40 Cha p ter 4 . The Debatable Nequitia Lewis of Ovid ................................. -41 -5 8 Chapter 5 . Ovid the Satirist ........................................................... -59-76 Conclusion............................................................................... -77-79 Bibliograpby ............................................................................. -80-84 List of Tables Figure 1. Occurrences of certain Latin sexual vocabulary in some Roman pets.. .. .. .. .48 Figure 2. Occurrences of the synonyms osdum. basium and savium (suavium) in some Roman pets... .50 Abstract Ovid's love poetry has been the subject of much criticism throughout the centuries since they were fïrst pubtished. This criticism has veered between condernnation and adulation, but one recurring element has been an emphasis upon the sexual morality of the poetry. Despite the sometimes very different concepts of what was deemed sexually immoral among these different critical mileus (the emperor Augustus' fear for the stability of the aristocracy is rather different fkom feminist concerns about sexual objectification, for example), this element has nevertheless been one of the main concems. The reason for this lies in the dichotomy between Ovid's sophisticated style and his extreme fnvolity - verging on amorality - conceming his subjects of love and sexual relationships. Thus the critics, who Like most people have held some sort of ethical beliefs regarding Ovid's subjects, have been divided between condernnation of the poetry for flouting these beliefs, and admiration of his style. This dichotomy has even resulted, in the case of certain medieval, and many feminist, ctitics, in a peculiar blindness to Ovid's sexual amorality, to the extent that it is argued to be a virtue. This has been accomplished either by ignoring the elements that contravene the critic's view of sexual morality, or by assuming that these elements were present only because Ovid was writing satire. This study examines these diverse arguments, with their relative ernphasis on Ovid's poetry as king purely nivolous (levis) or dangerously immoral (nequitia), and it shows how both of these descriptions must be combined in order to fom a real understanding of &id' love poetry. List of Abbreviations Used A. A. = Ars Amatoria of P. Ovidius Naso Am. = Amores of P. Ovidius Naso Catull. = C. Valerius Catullus Contr. = Controversiae of M. hmaeus Seneca Ecl. = Eclogae of P. Vergilius Maro Inst. = Institutiones Oratoriae of M. T.Quintilianus Liv. = Titus Livius Prop. = Sex. Aurelius Propertius Tib. = Albius Tibullus Tr. = Tristia of P. Ovidius Naso vii 1 would like to thdmy joint supervisors Dr. Rainer Friedrich and Dr. Patricia Calkin, and my reader Dr. Patrick Atherton, for their help in the preparation of this manuscript. 1 also thank Oisin Feeley for his support and encouragement. viii introduction The understanding of Ovid's Amores has ken complicated, perhaps more so than that of the works of any other Classicai author, by the warring elements of its style and content. The light and witty style of his writiog is seemingly at odds with what is actually said; yet the style is so pervasive and charrning that its influence on the content cannot be denied. Afier ail, for a critic to assume that Ovid means everything that he says, in complete disregard for his jesting tone, would be to ensure that the joke was on that critic. Nevertheless, to err on the other side - to assume that Ovid had no opinions beneath his levity - might be equaily inadequate, for it can be argued that al1 jokes must have an assumption behind them in order for them to be found hy.if Ovid's love poetry does have a single underlying theme, what might it be? The possible answers to these queries are varied indeed, and they are made more confusing by the fact that too close an analysis of Ovid's motives might uncover some Ovidian nequitia that one might not wish to hd. The ktpoem in the Amores, for example, begins the collection with Ovid's assertion that he tried to write of arma gravi numero violentaque bella - "arms and violent wars, in a weighty meter" - but he was prevented fiorn doing so by the intervention of Cupid. Cupid compels hirn to write love elegy instead of epic, and Ovid complies. To read only this fiom Amores 1.1, however, would be naïve beyond credibility. For one thing, it would k impossible to deny the humour inherent in the incongruou appearance of the puer Cupid after such a ponderous opening. The fact that Cupid literally steals a metrical fwt fiom Ovid's majestic hexameter not only sabotages Ovid's supposed epic, but also the readers' automatic suspension of disbelief. From the first line of a poem, readen will ordinarily tend to relinquish the conscious knowledge that they are reading words, organized into a particular rhythm, and will focu on the story and maod that the author wished to convey. Ovid, however, by Cupid's actions, has forcibly recded the readers back to an awareness of poetry's forma1 procedures. Upon delving Merinto these opening lines, it becomes plausible to argue that Ovid was not just commenting on the writing of poetry in general, but on the works of a particular poet: Vergil. Ovid's arma, after all, is cleariy a reference to Vergil's arma virumque Cano, both by that identical fist worci, but also, it has been argued, by the sirnilarity of the vowel sounds in the htthree words.' Ovid, thus, has begun his Amores collection with the somewhat brash suggestion that his poetry is comparable to the well- respected Vergil's. Furthemore, Ovid's explanation that, though he could have written Vergilian hexarneters, he was unfortunately prevented by divine interference can be seen as a veiled disparagement of Vergil. In his 6" Eclogue, Vergil had made use of the Callimachean recusatio, a traditional poetic excuse for choosing to write other than epic poetry. Vergil's Eclogue depicts the appearance of Apollo, who comrnands Vergil's narrator to eschew songs of kings and battles (reges et proelia, line 3) and to sing a lighter -- - - - 1 E.J. Kemey numbered the vowel sounds in Vergil's half line, and compared them to Ovid's words, noting that arma vimrnque Cano and magravi numero share the same vowel for their first, second, and iast syllables, while the four remaining vowels in each set are the same, but in a different order. E.J. Kenney, (deducfum)song. With Vergil having aiready been brought to the readers' minds by the arma of Ovid's line 1, Cupid's laughing preseace becomes a parody of Vergil's ~~ollo.' uistead of merely tweaking the poet 's ear, Cupid's metrical thefi points out the artifice and artificiality of poetry itself. This has undercut Vergil's attempt to validate his shepherd's songs, as well as the respectability of his divine patron. If that were not enough, Ovid tries to add insult to injury in the four-line introductory epigram witb which he begins his Amores collection. In this epigram, the poems speak for themselves: they, who once were five books, are now only three, they explain. As a result, the reader may not find them any more enjoyable, but at least at levior dempris poena duobus erit - "it will be a lighter punishment, since two books have been removed" (Am., epigrurn). This false modesty (Ovid certainly did not believe his poems to be unpopular) codd simply be a neat little introduction to the collection, reminiscent of Catullus' modest lepidus nomtibeffus. However, when the context
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