Juvencus

The Walking the Wire project springs from the general observation that there is (too) little interaction between scholars working on Late Antique Greek and Late Antique Latin poetry. Although similar problems and questions arise in research on both poetical traditions, a real dialogue between these two scholarly fields is still conspicuously missing. It is our conviction that a stronger dialogue is needed between the two fields to come to a better understanding, not only of the shared developments, but also of the subtle differences between the two traditions, which are now often overlooked or simplified because of the lack of comparative studies.

The bilingual focus of our project and the book which will be its result is chosen explicitly to stimulate the dialogue between the two fields and explore the possibilities this creates to come to a better understanding of Late Antique poetry. It aims to shed new light on literary developments that can or have been regarded as typical for Late Antiquity and on the poetic and aesthetic ideals that affect individual poems from this period. Only by analyzing this poetry from a bilingual perspective is it possible to correct common misunderstandings about the extent to which certain literary phenomena are typically “Late Antique”, “Latin” or “Greek”.

Because opening a dialogue can only be done in collaboration, this project can only be successful as teamwork. The broad outline of the current collaborative book project was decided upon during the closing round table discussion of the 2015 Edinburgh conference “Poetry and Aesthetics of Late Antiquity” (organized by Calum Maciver, Aaron Pelttari and Catherine Ware). New voices have entered the discussion since, and the workshop scheduled for 8-9 September 2016 in Ghent will bring all contributors (Latinist and Hellenists, established and junior scholars) together in order to discuss the many questions we are all struggling to answer. Discussion will be stimulated by the format of the workshop with pre-circulated draft chapters and appointed respondents.

In  the  fourth  century  CE,  Juvencus,  a  Spaniard  priest,  was  responsible  for  inaugurating  the tradition of the so-called biblical epics with his only surviving work-the Euangeliorum libri quattuor-which is dedicated to narrating Christ's life in dactylic hexameters. Given this novelty, the poet uses the preface to situate his work in relation to previous poets, justifying his endeavor and summarizing his choices for the text construction. Addressing the information presented and the way it is done, we propose an analysis of this portion of his poem in order to demonstrate how the author pursues this process using common themes of previous poetry at the same time that he rivals with it. It is observed, as an example, that the programmatic invocation to the Muses is replaced by an appeal to the Holy Spirit, and the traditional Greek springs from which inspiration flows, by the Jordan River.