Chapter 3 In the Center of the Kaleidoscope: Ovidian Poetic Image and Boccaccio’s Self-Representation in De Mulieribus Claris
Talita Janine Juliani*
1 Changing Patterns: Authorial Images Over Time
By considering the Roman poet Ovid (43 bc–17 ad) as a set of pieces inside a kaleidoscope—his works and everything surrounding his literary production serving as different and rearranged pieces1 that, from time to time, are seen from different angles—this contribution seeks to offer a closer observation of how some Ovidian vestigia were combined and understood by one of his successors,2 Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). Specifically, this chapter seeks to analyze the relationship between Ovid’s authorial images in Tristia (9–12 ad) and certain nuances of Boccaccio’s self-representations in the dedication, pro- em, and conclusion of De Mulieribus Claris, a catalog of women’s biographies written by the fourteenth-century author between 1361 and 1362.3
* This contribution began while I was a Ph.D. student, and some of its aspects were later incor- porated into my dissertation (Juliani 2016). I would like to thank the São Paulo Research Foun- dation for supporting me financially during my Ph.D. program (fapesp; No. 2012/05738-5), and also the University of Campinas (unicamp) and my adviser, Dr. Isabella Tardin Cardoso. In addition, I thank Professor Mario Alberto Labate from the University of Florence for help- ing me to address the questions developed in this chapter while I was studying in Italy. 1 For more on reception theory and intertextuality, see Hardie (2013). 2 If we consider Ovid’s presence in literature over time, we will certainly have an enormous quantity of material, since this author in particular has been widely referenced in literature and in all kinds of arts, and this reception has been broadly studied. See, for example, Mar- tindale (1990), Martindale (1993), Martindale and Richard (2006), Dimmick (2002), Hexter (1986), Kilgour (2012), Orlandi (1978), Smarr (1987), Smarr (1991), Wilkinson (1965), and Vol- ume 13 of Mediavalia, which was fully dedicated to the study of Ovid in medieval culture (Desmond 1989). 3 In a more general way, research on the relationship between Ovid’s poems and Boccaccio’s texts tend to privilege the Decameron (1348–1351) much more than any other Boccaccian work. For examples, see, Quaglio (1967), Hollander (1977), Hollander (1993), Velli (1979), Piguet (1985), Mazzotta (1986), Smarr (1987), Smarr (1991), Forni (1992), Rossi (1993), Tateo
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:10.1163/9789004398030_004
With these images, a poet who “disqualifies” his work and “depreciates” him- self (interpretations that appear in conventional authorial representations, such as the sphragis) by characterizing an oeuvre as a libellus will be the focus of the considerations herein. Firstly, my analysis of selected verses of Tristia will consider certain Callimachean and Neoteric topics, as well as the idea of continuity of literary careers in Ovid’s Tristia; then, I will assess such topics and ideas in selected passages from De Mulieribus Claris. Finally, with this discussion, I will attempt to demonstrate how Boccaccio seems to have used self-depreciating strategies taken from Ovid as a way to show–just as the Roman poet did—not real modesty, but, in fact, his knowl- edge of the Canon and its poetic foundations in order to insert his work and his authorial image into the poetic tradition.
2 Libellus, Canon, and Irony
It is known that Ovid’s poems in Tristia defined an exilic authorial represen- tation4 model on which several authors of posterity (for instance, Dante, Pe- trarch, Milton, and Victor Hugo) based their own images.5 In fact, Möller6 emphasizes the idea of an exilic Ovidian authorial image as being an artistic construction,7 one that seems to be interwoven with different
(1998), Surdich (2001), Labate (2006), and Barchiesi and Hardie (2010). Meanwhile, the num- ber of studies that focus on the relationship between Ovid’s texts and De Mulieribus Claris (1361–1362) are sparser. They include Kolsky (2004) and Filosa (2012). For an elaboration of De Mulieribus Claris, see Ricci (1959), Ricci (1985), and Zaccaria (1963). 4 For more on Ovid’s banishment, see, Thibault (1964), Korten (1992), and Claassen (2008). 5 See the chapters by Zambon (23–40), Houghton (41–58), Green (85–102), and Cox (173–188) in Ingleheart (2011). These chapters discuss the image of an exiled author in Dante, Petrarca, Milton, and Vitor Hugo texts, respectively. With regards to Ovid’s specific authorial represen- tation, the book edited by Hardie and Moore (2010) has two chapters dedicated to analyzing the presence of the Ovidian literary career in works by other authors (Barchiesi and Hardie and Kilgour, respectively), and I would like to emphasize the chapter written by Barchiesi and Hardie because of their contribution to the study of Boccaccio’s reception of Ovid’s authorial image and the influence of this image on the construction of his literary represen- tation during the Trecento. 6 I thank the author of this article for allowing me read it before published via my adviser, Dr. Isabella Tardin Cardoso (University of Campinas). 7 “It is probable that Ovid’s withdrawal mode is only presented on an inner fictional level as the ideal artistic-autobiographical way of life. In Tristia and Epistulae it is obviously important to him to visualize the possible living conditions of an exiled person. Place, time, and sensual