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The Senses and Synaesthesia in Horace's Satires by Amy

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The Senses and Synaesthesia in Horace's Satires by Amy THE SENSES AND SYNAESTHESIA IN HORACE’S SATIRES BY AMY LYNN NORGARD DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classical Philology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Antonios Augoustakis, Chair Associate Professor Ariana Traill Assistant Professor Brian Walters Professor Craig Williams ABSTRACT This study observes Horace’s Satires (Book 1 published c. 36-35 BCE, and Book 2 c. 30 BCE) through a lens of the body’s senses and organs involved in perception (eyes, ears, noses, mouths, hands, and tongues). Horace manipulates a multitude of bodies throughout his poetry, each contributing a different sensory experience, as a medium for representing and externalizing his poetic program. I seek to detect moments of synaesthesia within the text, by which I mean a literary crossing of the readable senses. Synaesthesia derives its name from the medical condition synaesthesia, which is a neurological conflation of the bodily senses: physical stimuli in the environment that trigger one mode of sense perception (like sight) also effect perception in a second sense (like hearing). By adopting synaesthesia as a literary interpretive model, I show how Horatian poetry, language, narrative, and themes emphasize integration and blending of the body’s senses, through which the audience can experience the text more richly. My research draws on scholarship of the Horatian body by Alessandro Barchiesi and Andrea Cucchiarelli, Emily Gowers, Joseph Farrell, Ellen Oliensis, and Amy Richlin, coupled with recent trends in studying the ancient senses by Shane Butler and Alex Purves, Helen Lovatt, and Mark Bradley. Despite rising interest in studies of the body, Bakhtinian perspectives, and gender in Classical scholarship, the Horatian body has not been recognized in a comprehensive manner on par with his fellow Roman satirists – a gap that my thesis aims to fill. Chapter 1 (Sight) treats the sense of sight and eyes in Horace’s satiric journey in S. 1.5 in tandem with Lucretian optic theory and Laura Mulvey’s theory of the active and penetrating male gaze from film theory. S. 1.5 is replete with eye dysfunction, namely that of Horace’s eponymous, “bleary-eyed” (lippus) persona. Through emphasizing eye and body dysfunction, we are led to question what Horace saw on his trip and what he allows the audience to see. ii Chapter 2 (Taste) is concerned with the sense of taste and digestion in the culinary poems S. 2.2, 2.6, and 2.8. Through the sights and smells of the dinner table and the savory taste of the food that is served, this chapter follows the food from presentation to palate to digestion as it is transformed into a literary metaphor for Horatian satiric poetics. Chapter 3 (Hearing) observes the sense of hearing in the satiric dialogues (S. 1.9 and 2.7), along with the faulty ears that are burdened with the task of listening. When engaged in dialogue, Horace’s persona is silenced or intentionally observes silence in preference to the spoken word, casting himself more as a member of the audience than satirist. However, his “leaky ear” (auris rimosa) and “floppy-eared nature” (flaccus) make listening into an onerous task. Finally, Chapter 4 (The Synaesthetic Garden) deconstructs S. 1.8 into a synaesthetic test case for Horatian satire by observing all the senses in tandem throughout the poem. From the smells of decaying bodies on the Esquiline hill, to the grotesque appearance of the witches, to the loud thunderous fart that chases them away, Priapus’ garden is truly a nexus of sensory stimuli. All of the chapters in this study seek to find the place where the bodily senses and sensing bodies collide, creating a full-bodied and engaging reading experience for the audience. By observing the bodies and senses throughout Horace’s own body of satires, it is my goal to identify Horace’s literary program relative to Lucilian satiric tradition. iii To my husband iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many individuals I would like to thank for their support and continued assistance throughout my writing process. First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes to my advisor, Antony Augoustakis. My dissertation topic was conceived in a seminar on Roman Satire taught by Antony in 2011. This course gave me an appreciation for the beauty, versatility, and nuance of Horace’s poetry, and for Antony’s profound talents as an instructor and advisor. Antony has guided me in countless discussions about satire, Horace, bodies, and the senses, and has been my most supportive reading audience member throughout the arduous drafting process. Additional and prolific thanks must be given to the members of my committee, Ariana Traill, Brian Walters, and Craig Williams. Their feedback and suggestions for revisions have been invaluable in the ongoing evolution of my interpretations and writing. The careful attention of these readers has saved me from many mistakes. The ones that remain are solely my own. I must also acknowledge my undergraduate Classics professors at Marquette University, Stephen Beall and Patricia Marquardt, who introduced me to Classics, urged me to continue my studies, and with whom I took my first class on Horace. Thanks to all of my professors and fellow graduate students at the University of Illinois for listening to all of the practice talks and class presentations, reading abstracts, and providing feedback on the early incarnations of this study. My gratitude is also owed to the Latin students at the University of Illinois Laboratory High School, who were a willing and enthusiastic audience on whom I was able to test some of my body- and food-centric readings of Latin texts. To my parents, Mom, Dad, and Jane, thank you for your continued support throughout the long eight years of my graduate studies. And finally to my husband, Chris, thank you for your love and support throughout our years together. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: READING THE SENSES, READING THE BODY......................................1 CHAPTER 1: SIGHT....................................................................................................................25 CHAPTER 2: TASTE....................................................................................................................74 CHAPTER 3: HEARING............................................................................................................127 CHAPTER 4: THE SYNAESTHETIC GARDEN......................................................................157 CONCLUSION: SENSING THE SATIRES................................................................................201 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................204 vi INTRODUCTION READING THE SENSES, READING THE BODY In Satire 2.8, Horace narrates a dinner feast in terms of the physical body and the bodily senses. For the entirety of the poem, the dinner guests are served unappetizing food whose origins and preparations are narrated ad nauseam by the host, Nasidienus. The foods served first are fairly innocuous – Lucanian boar and flat fish – but the fare quickly devolves once a pregnant eel is brought out, followed by a mass of deconstructed, severed animal parts thrown together seemingly at whim. A feast that aspired to impress its dinner guests – counted among whom is a silent Maecenas – falls flat, much like the curtain that falls on the food which is the first signpost of disaster. At the end of the poem, Horace narrates the imagined appearance of the witch-hag Canidia to mark the end of both Nasidienus’ disastrous feast, and Horace’s final foray into writing satiric verse. The narrative describes Canidia figuratively releasing her poisonous breath, “as if [she] had breathed upon the food, worse than African serpents” (velut illis / Canidia afflasset peior serpentibus Afris, S. 2.8.94-5),1 prompting the guests suddenly to depart (fugimus, 93) rather than partake in the inedible meal. This poem can be read within a larger literary tradition of dining scenes, both preceding and following Horace, that contain extended narration of food that is staged and served, and upon which the bodies around the table feast their eyes and bellies – the most prominent example of which is Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis. Like Petronius’ text, Horace’s Cena Nasidieni affords the audience a multi-sensory experience of the failed feast, as though we were present to 1 A note on the text: I follow Gowers 2012 for Horace’s Satires 1, and Shackleton Bailey 2008 for Horace’s other works, including Satires 2. All translations are my own unless stated. 1 experience the smells, tastes, sights, and sounds along with the dinner guests. Canidia’s sudden afflatus at the feast represents a pivotal moment of collision between bodily sense and literary text. The primary sense at work here is that of smell suggested by the rank breath emanating from Canidia’s mouth. Her breath is so potent that it figuratively ruins the meal as though it had been poisoned by venenum, implied by the presence of serpentibus Afris (95). Canidia’s putrid breath stands in for the food’s foul smell and foreshadows its foul taste, thus functioning as an appetite suppressant. Although taste is the primary sense experience one would expect at a banquet, the narration focuses on the absence of taste at Nasidienus’ feast, marked by the phrase “no one tasted anything at all”
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