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Other University Microfilms International THE RELATIONSHIP OF LOVE AND DEATH: METAPHOR AS A UNIFYING DEVICE IN THE ELEGIES OF PROPERTIUS DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By John Charles Gruber, A.B., M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 1987 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Charles L. Babcock Carl C. Schlam June W. Allison Adviser Department of Classics Copyright by John Charles Gruber 1987 parentibus optirais 11 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In writing this dissertation I have incurred many debts. First, I would like to thank Charles Babcock for his criticism, patience, and availability far beyond what is required of a dissertation adviser. His model of humane action is one which I hope to be able to emulate. I am also grateful to Carl Schlam and June Allison. Their comments and encouragement were important ingredients in the successful completion of this dissertation. I am indebted to the members of the Classics Department at Ohio State for teaching me how to think critically. In addition, my teachers at Xavier University, John Rettig, Robert Murray, Rev. John Felten, S.J., and Rev. Edward Burke, S.J., gave me an appreciation for Classics as a part of the liberal arts and as a part of life. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my friends and family for their camaraderie and support. In particular, I would like to thank Tim McNiven, Maureen Ryan, Dick Freed, Frank Coulson, and Steve Smith for proofreading portions of this dissertation. And to Ann Miller, my best friend and mainstay, I cannot begin to express my appreciation. Ill VITA August 22, 1957 ................. Born - Cincinnati, Ohio 1979 ............................Honors A.B. (sumroa cum laude), Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio 1979-1982 ........................ Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Classics, The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 1982 ............................M.A., Classics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1982-83 .......................... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1983-84 ......................... Regular Member, American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece 1984-86 ......................... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Classics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1986-87 ......................... Visiting Instructor, Department of Humanities/Classics, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field; Latin Literature IV TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................. iii VITA ......................................................... iv INTRODUCTION ................................................. 1 Introduction: Notes ............................... 11 CHAPTER PAGE I. Metaphors and Death in the Monobiblos.................. 15 Chapter I: N o t e s ................................. 68 II. Metaphorical Itineraries: Iter Amoris ................. 77 Chapter II: N o t e s ....................................138 III. The Lover’s Condition, Part I: Servitium Amoris .......... 148 Chapter III: N o t e s ..................................190 IV. The Lover’s Condition, Part II: Furor Am o r i s ..............196 Chapter IV: Notes ....................... ..... 244 V. litia Amoris in Propertius............................250 Chapter V: N o t e s ....................................302 VI. Conclusion..............................................310 Chapter VI: No t e s....................................336 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................339 INTRODUCTION Quid haec elegia sibi velit, non lia facile dictu. Although Petrus Enk’s oft-repeated lament specifically refers to 1.1, it might just as easily apply to many of Propertius’ elegies. To a large extent, the disagreements that readers have concerning the interpretation of 1.1 is based upon assumptions and methodologies that haunt their reading not just of 1.1, but of Propertius in general.^ Critics’ most common, yet frequently unexpressed, assumption about Propertius concerns his loose ’logic’, his apparent contradictions from poem to poem or even within a single poem. They expect that the poet should provide a single, coherent meaning within each poem. When Propertius does not offer such lucidity, their response is to transpose lines, offer emendations, or delete ’interpolated’ couplets.% In the past, scholars of the methodology of biographical criticism, who attempt to explain Propertius’ poetry as autobiographical, have reinforced the perception that Propertius is neither logical nor consistent. For example, these scholars have not been able to reconcile Propertius’ acknowledgment of Lycinna as his first girlfriend in 3.15 with his statement that Cynthia was the first (prima. 1.1.1).3 1 2 Nor have they been able to determine whether the Gallus mentioned in 1.5, 10, 13, and 20 is the poet or even if it is the same Gallus in all four poems.^ Since A. W. Allen convincingly exposed the biographical fallacy in two articles over twenty-five years ago and insisted upon reading individual poems on their own merits without interjecting 'historical* information from other poems, few have tried to interpret Propertius from a biographical perspective or have attempted to read the details of other poems back into another poem.5 Even though another methodology. New Criticism, was introduced into Fropertian studies with the advent of Allen’s articles, the same assumption, that Propertius’ poetry has a single meaning, continues to persist. In general. New Critics stress the need to read a poem within its own self-contained and self-defined poetic limits. While such an approach helps readers better appreciate the individual poem, two consequences arise. First, such an ^proach encourages the critic to look for various devices that assist in unifying a poem, such as the repetition of key words or phrases to frame one section and to provide a transition to the next or the use of various genres and topoi to help structure a poem.® While the recognition of such devices often reveals the poet’s movement of thought, critics sometimes fail to rise much beyond a catalog of such techniques or else limit the meaning of the poem to the poet’s use of such structural devices. In the process, the content of many poems is not adequately handled. The critic often reduces meaning to the 'fact’ that the poet has used a genre differently from his 3 predecessors or has added a new detail to a common motif such as servitium amoris rather than explore the way in which such alterations affect the reader’s understanding of the poem. And arguments, for instance, whether or not Propertius used the genre soteria in 2.28, still presuppose that determining the poem’s genre will determine 'the meaning’ of the elegy.^ Second, such a methodology as the