Download PDF Datastream
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Disruptive Verse: Hyperbole and the Hyperbolic Persona in Ovid’s Exile Poetry By Rachel Severynse Philbrick B.A., Cornell University, 2007 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics at Brown University PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2016 © Copyright 2016 by Rachel S. Philbrick This dissertation by Rachel S. Philbrick is accepted in its present form by the Department of Classics as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date _____________________ ___________________________________ Joseph Reed, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date _____________________ ___________________________________ Johanna Hanink, Reader Date _____________________ ___________________________________ Pura Nieto Hernandez, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date _____________________ ___________________________________ Peter M. Weber, Dean of Graduate School iii Curriculum Vitae Rachel Severynse Philbrick was born on May 25, 1985, in Boston, Massachusetts. She grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her parents and older sister, and attended high school at Commonwealth School in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. As an undergraduate, she attended Cornell University, graduating in 2007 with highest honors, having earned a B.A. in Latin and a B.A. in Biology and Society. Following graduation, she taught science at Kramer Middle School in Washington, D.C., before enrolling at the University of Kentucky in August 2009, where she earned a Master’s degree in Classics in 2011. That fall, she entered the doctoral program at Brown University in the Department of Classics. In the fall of 2016, he will join the Department of Classics at Georgetown University as a Visiting Assistant Professor. iv Acknowledgements It is no exaggeration to say that this dissertation would not have been possible without the support of countless people. I single out here just a few whose impact on my work and life has been especially great. I wish to start by thanking my dissertation committee members for their encouragement and confidence. Jay Reed, the auriga of this project, gave me enough free rein to explore my ideas while keeping me on track. Johanna Hanink always pushed me to think big. Pura Nieto Hernandez, who has been my mentor from the beginning, inspires me to strive for perfection. I would also like to thank two excellent advisors from my undergraduate years at Cornell. Michael Fontaine’s unfailing enthusiasm and encouragement are what brought me to graduate school in Classics. Hunter Rawlings helped me to think through my first large-scale research project. He was the first to tell me to learn Greek, and I hope that he will approve of this (Latin) dissertation. Many thanks also to my wonderful fellow graduate students at Brown, especially the members of the Dissertation Writing Support Group, Dominic Machado, Darrel Janzen, and Perot Bissell, for their thoughtful and diligent feedback. Tara Mulder has been a model and a voice of reason, helping me stay sane, since prospie weekend. I also owe more than I can say to my parents, whose continued love and support have, more than anything else, allowed me to complete this project. My mother has contributed to it in many ways both direct and indirect, from answering etymological questions to providing a standard of intellectual rigor I can only hope to meet. In thanks, I have not asked her to edit this manuscript, and as a result it is undoubtedly worse than it could have been. v Table of Contents Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. v Introduction: The Hyperbolic Persona ............................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: The Problem of Hyperbole ............................................................................. 18 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 18 2. Far Enough But Not Too Far ................................................................................... 19 3. Truth and Credibility ................................................................................................ 24 4. Sincerity and Irony ................................................................................................... 31 5. Laughing With and Laughing At .............................................................................. 39 6. Encomiastic Excess ................................................................................................... 45 7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 51 Chapter 2: Adynata and the Exile-Oikoumene Divide ........................................................... 53 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 53 What are Adynata? ................................................................................................. 55 Ovid’s Adynata ........................................................................................................ 58 2. The Rome-Tomis Binary .......................................................................................... 63 Tristia 3.12: An Ode to Spring .............................................................................. 75 Epistulae ex Ponto 1.8: Bucolic Dreams ................................................................... 82 3. Adynata as Poetic Instantiations of the Exilic Binary ................................................. 89 4. Overturning the Laws of Nature ............................................................................... 98 5. Conclusion: Ovid’s Scythia and Augustan Rome ................................................... 106 Chapter 3: Surpassing the Wandering Hero .................................................................. 112 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 112 2. Enumerating the Innumerable ............................................................................... 116 3. Surpassing Ulysses ................................................................................................... 123 4. Ulysses as Model ..................................................................................................... 127 A Homeric Elegy ................................................................................................. 130 Suffering at Sea ................................................................................................... 135 The Coda: Epistulae ex Ponto 4.10 ......................................................................... 146 5. Other Models .......................................................................................................... 147 Jason .................................................................................................................... 147 Aeneas ................................................................................................................. 156 6. Conclusion: The Wandering Hero at the Limits .................................................... 159 vi Chapter 4: Reading Ovid's Exile in the Ibis .................................................................... 163 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 163 2. The Punch Line: Ibis 637-38 ................................................................................... 165 3. Ibis the Surrogate .................................................................................................... 174 Innumerable Woes .............................................................................................. 176 Deprivation ......................................................................................................... 179 Funeral and Death .............................................................................................. 180 Metaphors of Death and Suffering ..................................................................... 183 4. Ovid the Cursed ...................................................................................................... 189 5. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 199 Conclusion: Surpassing Ovid .......................................................................................... 201 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 211 vii INTRODUCTION The Hyperbolic Persona By 11 C.E., Ovid had been banished from Rome for several years already, living out his exile in a small town along the northwestern Black Sea coast. He had spent a great deal of that time attempting to maintain and develop relationships back in Rome. He had written letters to his wife, to friends, to benefactors, even to enemies. He had even written a long letter to Caesar Augustus, defending himself and his poetry and pleading his case for recall to Rome. And he had made these communications and requests public in the form of four