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UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Desire and Self-Construction in Tibullus' Elegies Book 1: Reading Tibullus with Lacan Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1m02q1rc Author Taynton, Nicole Elizabeth Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Desire and Self-Construction in Tibullus' Elegies Book 1: Reading Tibullus with Lacan A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Classics by Nicole Elizabeth Taynton Committee in charge: Professor Sara Lindheim, Chair Professor Francis Dunn Professor Dorota Dutsch Professor Jon Snyder June 2018 The dissertation of Nicole Elizabeth Taynton is approved. ____________________________________________ Francis Dunn ____________________________________________ Dorota Dutsch ____________________________________________ Jon Snyder ____________________________________________ Sara Lindheim, Committee Chair June 2018 Desire and Self-Construction in Tibullus' Elegies Book 1: Reading Tibullus with Lacan Copyright © 2018 by Nicole Elizabeth Taynton iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, thank you to my husband, Clark, whose love and encouragement was my greatest source of support in the process of earning my degree. Thank you to Dr. Douglas Penney, my undergraduate advisor at Wheaton College (IL), whose mentorship inspired me to pursue academic research at the graduate level. Thank you to Dr. Mark Thorne, my first Latin professor, who introduced me to the world of ancient Rome and the age of Augustus. Thank you to my brother and sister, Jessica and Jacob, who were always there when I needed them most. Thank you to my father, Phil, whose belief in me and my abilities helped me to keep moving forward. Thank you to my fellow graduate students at UCSB, who found ways to support me in this process regardless of the pressures of their own graduate work. Thank you especially to my office mates, Aerynn Dighton and Julio Vega, whose patience and encouragement went far beyond what I could have asked of them. Thank you to my many professors in my time at UCSB, all of whom have left a mark on my thinking and my work. Thank you especially to my committee members, Francis Dunn, Dorota Dutsch, and Jon Snyder, who held me to the highest standard and pushed me to improve my work at every step of the way. Last but certainly not least, I want to thank the three women without whom this project would never have been possible: Thank you to my mother, Cynthia, who instilled in me the love of learning and who always encouraged me never to give up on my goal of earning my Ph.D. Thank you to my grandmother, Jane Buehrer, whose legacy of promoting education, especially for the women in her family, has inspired her children and grandchildren earn a total of eight graduate degrees (and counting). Finally, thank you to my advisor, Sara Lindheim, who has gone above and beyond again and again to help me grow as a scholar, a teacher, and a person. It was a privilege to work so closely with you as you were writing your forthcoming book and to develop our individual projects side by side. When we began this process, I wanted to become more like you, but you pushed me instead to become a better version of myself. It seems fitting that I cannot put into words just how grateful I am for everything that you have done for me. iv VITA OF NICOLE ELIZABETH TAYNTON June 2018 EDUCATION 2018 Ph.D in Classics, University of California, Santa Barbara 2014 M.A. in Classics, University of California, Santa Barbara 2012 B.A. in Ancient Languages and Philosophy, Wheaton College (IL) CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS 2018 “Roman Elegy Remixed: Gender and Genre in Catalepton 4,” SCS Annual Meeting 2018 “‘Who’s That Girl’: (Mis)Recognizing Marathus in Tibullus 1.8,” CAMWS Annual Meeting TEACHING EXPERIENCE UC Santa Barbara Teaching Associate, (Instructor of Record) for “Gender, Sexuality, and Self-Construction: Roman Elegy and Contemporary Pop Music” (Winter 2018) Teaching Associate, (Instructor of Record) for “Greek Literature in Translation” (Summer 2016) Teaching Associate, (Instructor of Record) for “Latin 1” (Fall 2015) Teaching Assistant, Section Instructor for “Greek Mythology” (Fall 2013, Winter 2014, Spring 2014, Winter 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2017, Spring 2018) Wheaton College Teaching Assistant, “Intermediate Greek” (Fall 2010, Fall 2011) Teaching Assistant, “Elementary Greek II” (Spring 2011, Spring 2012) Teaching Assistant, “Elementary Hebrew” (Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012) HONORS AND AWARDS 2012-2017 Chancellor’s Fellow, Chancellor’s Office, UC Santa Barbara 2017 Dean’s Prize Teaching Fellowship, UC Santa Barbara 2014 Keith Aldrich Memorial Award, Department of Classics, UC Santa Barbara 2012 Senior Scholarship Award, Wheaton College (IL) 2012 Gerald F. and Jane E. Hawthorne Endowed Scholarship in Greek Studies, Wheaton College (IL) 2010 C. Hassell Bullock Award for Outstanding First-Year Hebrew Students, Wheaton College (IL) v ABSTRACT Desire and Self-Construction in Tibullus' Elegies Book 1: Reading Tibullus with Lacan by Nicole Elizabeth Taynton In this dissertation, I propose that a Lacanian psychoanalytic approach to the speaking subject of the lover-poet in Tibullus’ Elegies can deepen our understanding of Tibullus’ poetry, particularly with respect to his fantasy of the countryside and his relationships with Delia and Marathus. I suggest that Lacanian psychoanalytic theory provides us with a framework through which we can articulate the complex and multi- layered process of self-reflection and self-construction in Tibullus’ Elegies Book 1. In chapter 1, I look closely at the lover-poet’s country fantasy in poems 1.1, 1.10, and 2.1. In his fantasy of rustic happiness, we see the lover-poet’s longing for a sense of wholeness and sufficiency, which he repeatedly describes as “having enough.” Yet in each iteration of his dream, Amor disrupts the lover-poet’s ideal, bringing with it the threat of dissatisfaction, excess, and even violence. I propose that the theory of Amor which we find in the lover-poet’s country fantasy invites a Lacanian interpretation of Tibullus’ poems. Chapter 2 suggests that the structure of desire in the lover-poet’s country fantasy parallels the structure of desire in his relationship with Delia. The lover-poet’s relationship with Delia thus fits into a broader investigation of the desiring subject in Elegies Book 1. Lacan’s concept of objet a provides a way to account for the ambiguity of what the lover- poet really wants in both of these fantasies and why he never seems to be able to attain it. vi Chapter 3 expands my exploration of the lover-poet’s relationship with Delia to include his representation of Delia herself. First, I explain the sense of absence and uncertainty that surrounds the lover-poet’s representation of Delia’s desire in poem 1.2, putting forth Lacan’s account of Woman’s desire as a way to interpret these ambiguities. Second, I show how Lacan’s framework provides a way to understand the lover-poet’s excessive idealization of Delia in poem 1.3 as a series of fantasies around objet a. In chapter 4, I shift my focus to the lover-poet’s self-portrayal in his relationship with Delia. The Tibullan lover-poet casts himself in a series of enigmatic positions, such as the ianitor (1.1) and the poor attendant (1.5), where he is trapped by restrictions which simultaneously enable and prevent his access to the object of his desire. The lover-poet only ever envisions having a sense of fulfillment from his relationship to Delia when he imagines himself dying or already dead. I suggest that the lover-poet’s self-positioning in each of these scenes reflects the plight of the subject in Lacanian theory. Finally, in chapter 5, I consider the lover-poet’s representation of his relationship with the boy, Marathus, in poem 1.8. The lover-poet’s representation of the boy first as a puella-figure and then as an amator reveals the crisis of categories that emerges when he tries to articulate the boy’s place in his poetic world. I offer Lacan’s concept of Imaginary object relations to explain why the lover-poet represents Marathus in such a paradoxical manner and why he reacts as he does to his encounter with the boy in poem 1.8. To conclude the dissertation, I present some ways that reading Tibullus’ Elegies Book 1 through a Lacanian lens enriches our understanding of Tibullus’ poetry and its relationship to the work of the other elegists. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1. Tibullus' Fantasy of the Countryside ..................................................................... 12 2. A Parallel Fantasy: "To Be With" Delia ................................................................ 87 3. Constructing Delia ............................................................................................... 115 4. The Fate of the Subject: The Tibullan Lover-Poet .............................................. 149 5. A Crisis of Self-Construction: (Mis)Recognizing Marathus ............................... 189 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 229 Bibliography ...........................................................................................................