Virgil

The article opposes the view that the Vergilius Romanus (Rome, BAV Vat.lat.3867) was made in Rome in the late the 5th c. (D. Wright) as a fruit of a pagan revival, which is an historical misunderstanding. The author comes back to an earlier and more authoritative view (A. Goldschmidt and others) that the codex was made during the 6th c. in Gaul. Toulouse or Narborensis Gallia are proposed as place of origin. The author advances also new suggestions on the Vatican Vergil (BAV cod.lat.3225).

Version originale : Geschichte der römischen Literatur von Andronicus bis Boëthius mit Berücksichtigung ihrer Bedeutung für die Neuzeit, München, 1994 (2. Auflage), 1466 p.

"Retraçant l'histoire de la littérature latine de l'Antiquité, depuis ses débuts au IIIème siècle av. J.-C. jusqu'au VIème siècle de notre ère, cet ouvrage s'est imposé depuis sa parution comme une référence dans le domaine des lettres classiques. Il est à présent offert au public francophone, enrichi d'une importante mise à jour bibliographique.
Par sa structure systématique, le livre se prête autant à une lecture suivie qu'à une consultation plus ponctuelle, facilitée aussi par le volumineux index. Tout en suivant une approche chronologique, il accorde une place priviligiée aux genres littéraires, présentés dans une série de chapitres diachroniques qui n'ont guère d'équivalent dans les manuels francophones. Autre spécificité, l'attention portée à la permanence des oeuvres latines de l'Antiquité dans les lettres et les arts: la présentation de chaque auteur s'achève par un aperçu - d'ampleur inégalée dans les ouvrages correspondants - de son influence sur la littérature latine postérieure et sur les écrivains, artistes et penseurs qu'il inspira, du Moyen Âge à nos jours.
À la fois érudite et accessible, cette histoire de la littérature n'est pas seulement un outil de travail précieux pour les étudiants et professeurs en lettres classiques et modernes, mais offre, à toutes les personnes qu'intéressent la culture européenne et ses racines antiques, une introduction idéale à notre héritage latin."

http://giemmardelplata.org/archivos/librosyactas/
Capítulo publicado en: Florio, Rubén (dir.) Varia et diversa: Sus contactos con la Historia, Mar del Plata, UNMPdP / UNL, 2018, pp. 157-206. // The main purpose of this research is proposing a new critical approach to the reading of the poem entitled De Raptu Helenae, which was written by Blossius Aemilius Dracontius in the 5th Century. We will particularly examine its exordium, in order to suggest that there is a strong formal connection between the compositional technique of centonal poems’ authors and certain narrative strategies adopted by Dracontius when he inscribes his text in the epic proemium’s tradition. Once established that the invocation of Homer and Virgil substitutes the conventional request to the Muse for inspiration, we shall demonstrate that the apparent praise constitutes actually a veiled attack to those pagan authors, structured by the semantic inversion of different quotes and allusion taken from Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Prudentius and Ausonius, among other poets.
Centonal compositions - epic proems - Dracontius

In 1436, Leon Battista Alberti wrote a letter to Filippo Brunelleschi, which he attached to a manuscript of his recently completed treatise on painting, De pictura. In it, Alberti lauded some of the Florentine artists of his day, singling out Brunelleschi for particular praise on account of the unprecedented engineering feat of constructing the cupola of the Florentine cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. This article undertakes a close reading of some parts of the letter, focusing especially on the link that Alberti draws between great intellects (ingegni) and giants. Exploring the cultural traditions that might have informed Alberti's thinking—in particular, canto XXXI of Dante's Inferno— -the article considers how the giants introduce an element of moral jeopardy, significantly complicating what might otherwise appear to be a purely celebratory text. This sense of ambivalence is further explored in relation to the 'long exile' from which Alberti says that his family (banished from Florence for nearly three decades, until 1428) had recently returned. Similar phrases appear in Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses, and consideration of these poems, it is argued, might further inflect our understanding of Alberti's words in the letter. In this way, the article investigates how Alberti employed sophisticated literary means in order to express his own feelings regarding Brunelleschian ingegno and technical mastery; feelings that were both highly nuanced and, ultimately, unsettled.

CONTENTS

October 17th, 2011 [pages 6-15]
I
Persecution and the Art of Writing or Towards a Hermeneutics of Suspicion
from interpretation of the meaning between lines to explanation of the transcendental effect of forms

1. ‘PERSECUTION’: from the threat of philosophical truth to the subversion of the verisimilitude of fiction

2. ‘THE ART OF WRITING’: protection for the author and selective communication with accomplices

i. The protective output: the censor’s impasse and authority outwitted

ii. The communicational output: separation of readerships and selective training in the subversive knowledge

3. The ‘ART OF READING’: from interpretation of the implicit message to explanation of the transcendental revolution in forms

i. The ‘interpretation’ stage: moving from the explicit sense to the implicit intended meaning—criteria for recognizing and reconstructing the concealed message.
  * First stage: criteria for recognizing anomalies that give grounds to suspect second intentions
  * Second stage: reconstruction criteria allowing the implicit meaning to be established

ii. The stage of ‘explanation’: from the sociology of knowledge to transcendental stylistics

October 18th, 2011 [pages 16-31]
II
The Latin Erotic Elegy and the Case of Propertius
from subversion of the Augustan imperial ethos to the metaphysics of dissimulatio

1. Introduction. From the elegiac paradox (irrepressible passion-love in an interruptive texture) to an art of writing between the lines

2. A historico-literary context of substitution: the Roman erotic elegy between poetic dissimulatio and Augustan auctoritas

i. Literary elements that contribute to ‘recognition’ of the elegiac art of writing: from literature as imitatio to irony as dissimulatio

ii. Political elements that contribute to the ‘reconstruction’ of the implied message: elegiac values versus the values of Augustan auctoritas—Propertius’ authorial situation vis-à-vis the vates, Horace and Virgil.

3. Interpretation: an amatory façade for the subversion of imperial values—progressive dissimulatio in Propertius’ writing

i. Propertius’ independence in the Monobiblos: from amatory etiology to the sphragis of political resistance

ii. Propertius’ precautions in Maecenas’ circle, or the art of writing in Books 2 and 3: from the amatory mask to the mask of literary rivalry
  * The love mask: frontal subversion of Augustan moral reforms and marriage laws sheltered in the imperative of ‘irregular elegiac passion’
  * The mask of literary rivalry in the programmatic elegies: from urban recusatio, the refusal to write epic on national themes, to subversion of the Augustan ideals expressed in the official poetry of Horace and Virgil.
  -Subversion of the imperial ideals in Virgil’s poetry: mocking the claims of the Aeneid. Propertius 2.34.
  -Subversion of Horace’s public stances in the Odes. Propertius 3.1-2.
  * The final mask: the use of hyperbole, bad taste and mythological harmonics to subvert the political values and legitimated triumphs of the imperial authority

iii. Propertius under Augustus’ eye: the final dissimulatio in Book 4—subversion by deliberate bad taste and allusion by mythological harmonics.

4. Explanation: from the counterworld of the elegiac fiction to the metaphysics of dissimulatio

i. The sociology of discourse: the counterworld of the elegiac fiction, or the Dionysiac inversion of Apollonian values

ii. Transcendental poetics: the metaphysics of dissimulatio


October 19th, 2011 [pages 32-56]
III
The Love Poetry of the Provençal Troubadours
from the sensualism of the gai saber to the synthesis of sound against the totalitarianism of vision

1. Introduction. A paradoxical contrast – the monotony of the motives of idealized love versus the originality of the couplings of rhyme – as promotion of the queen in a game of warfare

2. A historico-literary context of substitution. Troubadour joi: from the gai saber of Occitan dispersion to the linguistic joculum of the couplings of rhyme

i. The philosophico-discursive side: the naturalistic sensualism of the gai saber vs. Christian orthodox ontotheology

ii. The poetico-literary aspect: the promotion of musical joculum in the couplings of rhyme

3. Interpretation. The naturalistic sensualism of the gai saber: a provocative defense of ‘sensory passion’ in a ‘world governed by chance’

i. The trobar prim (naturau e cortes) of William of Aquitaine (1071-1126): from the paradox of a ‘double-faced poet’ to the game of con in a world of chance
  * The contradictions of a ‘double-faced poet.’ A reading in context
  * The natural register in the companion songs: a pornographic imaginary behind the explicit defense of natural passion.
  * The invention of the ‘courtly love’ register: a confession of unsatisfied desire and submission to the domna as a parody of the new ideals of monastic asceticism.
  * The pseudo-metaphysical register in Farai un vers de dreit nien: an ‘Enigma about Nothingness’ as a parody of the Hyperessence, or immanent naturalism against negative theology.

* Conclusion regarding the interwoven registers at the origin of the trobar: the promotion of passion-love in the immanence of the world behind the defensive façade of courtly love.

ii. Marcabrú’s trobar brau: the paradox of a moralizing but obscene condemnation of love as a parody of preachers that awakens desire.

iii. The courtly trobar or the classic canso in anamorphosis: from confession of a belligerent confrontation over sensory passion to staging of the experience of joi

iv. Arnaut Daniel’s trobar clus: concealment and final communication of the gai saber in the arts of the miglior fabbro del parlar materno
  * The trobar leu and the arrival of the trobar clus: the case of Arnaut Daniel’s trobar ric.
  * The concealment of meanings in the trobar clus.
  * Lexicon and images: the dir strano e bello or the subversion of the metaphorical order
  * Linguistic Marranism and barbarolexia: the Provençal parody of official Latin
  * Impossible images and dream allegories: subversion of the metaphorical order.
  * Verbal music: from the sensory materialization of the joi of the world to the experience of pleasure in the arts of delay
  * Daniel’s characteristic consonance: the song of nature as an invitation to joi
  * The cobla ‘dissoluta’: the arts of amatory delay, intensification of desire by deferred satisfaction, in the sensory field of rhyme. (Sim fos amors de joi donar tan larga).
  * The last stage of the trobar (Lo ferm voler qu’el cor m’intra): linguistic, sexual and metaphysical dissemination in the ‘sestina.’
-The involution of the sestina as the final stage of experimentation in the arts of delay of the trobar (mot refranh, rims estrams, permutations).
-The linguistic dissemination of the words in the poem: from the banal motifs of courtly love to the martial imagery and sensory experience of the pleasures of delay
-The sexual dissemination of images: the pornographic double meaning behind the mask of courtly love
-Metaphysical dissemination in the formal device: the imperative of a ‘game of chance’

4. Explanation. From the foundation of the space of modern lyrical fiction to the synthesis of sound against the totalitarianism of vision

i. Sociology of discourse: the forms of meaning of the trobar as the foundation for the sphere of modern lyrical fiction – from concealment of enjoyment in form to promotion of independent enjoyment of form

ii. Emancipation of the synthesis of hearing versus the totalitarianism of vision and the diurnal image
  * The oral forms of meaning of the Romance tongues versus the written Latinitas
  * From reversal of the hierarchy between material sound and spiritual light to the synthesis of listening vs. the epistemology of vision
  * The significant detail of the ‘alba’: explicit defense of natural passion in the context of a musical and nocturnal perception that turns away from the diurnal vision of the opponents of joi

* Coda. A detective’s art of reading of selective application

It has been argued that there were groups of artists called poetae Vergiliani and poetae Ovidiani. While this may be the case, re-examination of commonly adduced epigraphic evidence shows that these inscriptions cannot be used to support this view.

This paper analyzes Vergil’s representation of militant wo¬men in the Aeneid in cross-cultural compari-son with contemporary discourses about female combatants in the Middle East. I draw on recent femi-nist work in conflict studies, which has argued that contemporary journalism and scholarship rely on two stereotyped discourses to interpret female militancy: the “vacant womb” and the “deviant womb.” I argue that Vergil employs these same narratives to “maternalize” female combatants, representing women’s violence in maternal terms, as either a product or a perversion of motherhood. I conclude that this rhetorical strategy serves to marginalize and depoliticize female combatants by reinscribing violent women in the domestic and maternal sphere.

V ponedeljek, 16. julija 2018, sem imel opravek v bližini Zmajskega mostu, in ko sem ga razmišljeno prečkal, kot najbrž že tisočkrat prej, sem se ne vem zakaj spomnil, da mi je Primož Simoniti pred časom govoril o plošči z latinskim napisom, ki je vzidana vanj. Ustavil sem se in jo res takoj našel. Vzidana je na desnem bregu pri Pravni fakulteti in je nekakšna zgodovinska opomba pod črto, ki so si jo ob gradnji novega železobetonskega mostu leta 1901 privoščili Ljubljančani. Plošča je prej krasila temelje hrastovega Mesarskega mostu, ki ga je potres leta 1895 prehudo poškodoval. Napis je precej standarden, je pripovedoval Primož, zanimiv pa je elegični distih, s katerim se konča. Kronogram, v katerem se skriva letnica 1819, ko je bil leseni most postavljen, gre takole:

eVge eXoptatVs sVrreXIt Vt arCeat Ignes
    arDeret sI qVa proXIMVs VCaLegon

Krasno, postavljen je, zdaj bo lahko odganjal plamene,
    če bo v bližini mostu kje Ukalégon vzplamtel.

Ukalégon je precej obskurna mitološka figura, Priamov prijatelj iz tretjega speva Iliade, novi prevod Jelene Isak Kres ga označi kot »razsodnega moža«. Potem se pojavi še pri Vergiliju, v drugem spevu Eneide, ko Ahajci požgejo Trojo - in še enkrat, že s pridihom parodije, pri Juvenalu, v tretji satiri, ki sem jo nekoč prevajal in si najbrž samo zato zapomnil ime. Primožu se je zdelo imenitno dvoje - da so učeni Ljubljančani v začetku 19. stoletja na most vzidali še kar subtilno literarno referenco in da so jo njihovi potomci več rodov kasneje, v začetku 20. stoletja, spoštljivo ohranili. Ploščo sem si shranil v telefon in zraven pomislil, kako značilno je za Primoža, da ti zna sredi Zmajskega mostu, ki si ga videl že tolikokrat, odpreti oči za Homerja, Vergilija in Juvenala, ki so vzidani vanj. Hkrati sem razmišljal, kako bi ga nagovoril za članek o tem napisu, da bi ga lahko objavili v novi znanstveni reviji, ki jo pripravljamo z našimi študenti. Ravno na študente na svojem oddelku je bil vedno zelo ponosen. Naslednjega jutra sem potem izvedel, da članka ne bo, tako da ne vem, kaj bi mi rekel. Precej dobro pa vem, kaj si misli zdajle, kjerkoli že bere to zgodbo in njeno čudno sumljivo časovno sovpadanje. Z nasmeškom si mrmra misel nekega drugega skeptičnega učenjaka, Giordana Bruna, ki jo je rad citiral: Se non è vero, è ben trovato. Če že ni res, je pa vsaj dobro izmišljeno.

O gênero épico tinha por objetivo mais nobre a preservação de histórias contadas por gerações e nessas histórias, narradas por versos cantados – elemento antigo para memorização –, preservavam os nomes de heróis, pais fundadores, espaços míticos, cotidiano antigo, pensamentos arcaicos, buscava-se preservar o máximo de um contexto ao qual os ouvintes já não faziam mais parte ou, notavam resquícios de um tempo que não conheceram. Foi a escrita que eternizou, na melhor das hipóteses, todo esse elemento épico que estava por ameaça constante do esquecimento.

For over three thousand years people have heard about Troy and the Trojan War which was waged between the Spartans and the Trojans, as well as their allies. The poet Homer wrote about this war from the Greek point of view, the Greek historian Herodotus also wrote about the war from the Greek standpoint, while Virgil took a different approach and told his story from the perspective of the defeated Trojans and Aeneas, their prince. Even with so many different people and cultures writing over the centuries about Troy and the infamous war that took place there, many historians and archaeologists who are still divided on whether or not this event actually happened at all. In spite of this division, there has been some rather overpowering evidence discovered over the last two hundred years that gives credence to the actual existence of Troy and the Trojan War as it is described in Virgil’s epic poem, The Aeneid.

This discussion outlines the poetical features of style and narrative technique which contribute to Virgil's psychological characterisation and considers the role of audience response - in terms of reception, intertextuality and ideology - in determining Virgil's characterisation.

The scope of Hamilton’s project is not historical reconstruction, but an “attempt to show what the Romans were as they appear in their great authors” (263). Hamilton’s aim is to pinpoint the peculiar Roman qualities that distinguished them from the other cultures of antiquity (263). In order to do this, Hamilton takes her readers on a thirteen-chapter whirlwind tour of the most influential Roman writers—describing their texts and the Rome in which they lived. The book is written in four rough sections: the establishment of Roman letters in the comedies of Plautus and Terence (chapters 1-3); the Republic and Caesar as depicted by Cicero (chapters 4-6); the age of Augustus as depicted in the poetry of Catullus and Horace (chapters 7-10); and the elevation to romantic literature before the bifurcation and disintegration of Roman society (chapters 11-13). In each chapter, Hamilton makes the case that Roman writers were “Romans first” and “individual artists only second” (264). Her thesis is that in the end the differences between Roman authors were “superficial compared to their fundamental resemblances” (264). All followed “the Roman way.”

In this essay on Virgil's Aeneid, I explore the role of memory and historical consciousness as the basis for the general formation of the epic and the outcome of the interpersonal events between Aeneas and Dido, and Aeneas and Turnus. More specifically, I argue that the image on the shield of Aeneas forged by Vulcan is the key to understanding the imagery and story arc of Virgil's grand epic.

Detailed notes on Virgil's epic. The notes cover the overall relation of Virgil's work to the Homeric epics, the historical context of the Aeneid in the decline of the Roman Republic and the civil strife of the 1st Century BCE, the ambiguity of Virgil's relation to the Greek tradition and to philosophy, and the question of Virgil's attempt to celebrate the Roman achievement and the "way of the ancestors".

RESUMO O presente trabalho tem como principal objetivo apresentar algumas reflexões sobre a temática do amor homoerótico e do amor-veneração, na Antiguidade Clássica. Para tanto, utilizaremos como ponto de partida a Bucólica II, de Virgílio. Palavras-chave: Bucólicas. Amor-veneração. Amor homossexual. ABSTRACT The present work has as main objective to present some reflections on the theme of homoerotic love and love-veneration, in Classical Antiquity. For that, we will use Virgílio's Bucolic II as a starting point. Na poesia grega e latina de todas as épocas, existem inúmeras re-ferências ao homossexualismo. Suas variações entre os autores clássicos diferem profundamente, quando observamos o tratamento dado e o con-texto social no qual cada obra foi escrita. A seleção de uma obra e uma pequena parte desta nos permitem enfocar de forma pormenorizada como o tema foi tratado, em um mo-mento histórico específico. Para tanto, neste artigo, selecionamos a Bu-cólica II, de Virgílio, obra fundamental em qualquer análise sobre a An-tiguidade clássica. A partir de sua análise, refletiremos sobre algumas temáticas, que foram tão caras à poesia pastoril como o amor homosse-xual e o amor-veneração. Nesta Bucólica, cabe destacar, o tema principal: o amor no qual o velho e curvado pastor Coridão reclama da indiferença do jovem e belo,

This document contains the text—in the original Greek and Latin, and in several translations—of the proems to the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid. My translations of the Homeric proems attempt to render the text literally and (roughly) preserve word order.

The postcolonial theory opens the way for a reappraisal of the relation between the Roman and the Greek authors in the Imperial Age. This book aims to develop research around the influence of the Augustan political propaganda on the works of Strabo and Virgil, by means of the analysis of some passages of the XIIIth Book of the Geography.