"Idem aliter", czyli o dwóch opisach dyplomatycznej podróży do Persji w poezji późnego antyku (Claud. Cons. Stil.. I 51–68; Sid. Carm. II 75–88)

Two Latin poets of late antiquity, Claudian and Sidonius Apollinaris, included in their verse panegyrics short descriptions of diplomatic journey to Persia. The first mentioned the mission of Stilicho himself in “Panegyric on the consulate of Stilicho” (400 AD), whereas the latter described the mission of Procopius, father of the honorand in the “Panegyric on the consulate of Anthemius” (468 AD). Since Sidonius was in many ways imitator of Claudian, these pieces show a great deal of similarity both in content and form (especially in wording). However, closer scrutiny enables us to discover some differences in the treatment of Oriental topics as well as in general attitude to the praised heroes. Such an analysis allows us an insight into the image of Iranian world created in the Roman poetry as well as the question of sources used by late Latin poets. This paper can be also treated as a small contribution to the discussion on Sidonius’ imitation of Claudian poetry.

«Poem Should Thrill»: on the Rough Sonnets of Neoclassic Poets in the Context of the Totalitarian Regime

The works of Ukrainian neoclassicists as the representatives of the era of «Executed Renaissance», who left an invaluable heritage and made a tremendous contribution to the enrichment of not only Ukrainian but also world literature, have repeatedly become the subject of scholars’ research. The purpose of the study is to analyze the sonnet as a phenomenon that appeared in the first third of the last century: what caused its «rigidity» and «severity», as well as what is its poetic beauty. Materials and methods of research. This article is based on the analysis of archival materials, letters, memoirs, the press of the twenties («Chervonyi Shliakh», «Nova Hromada», etc.), published and unpublished editions of works by Ukrainian neoclassicists. The severity of life dictated its own rules, its own style and its own norms. Sonnets of Ukrainian neoclassicists were also rigit or «strict». Comparative-historical and descriptive methods are used in the work. Discussion. The representatives of the informal society «neoclassicism», which was formed in Ukraine in the 20s of the 20th century, professed an aesthetic concept of spiritual renewal of the writer’s consciousness and the nation in general, disciplined the cardiocentric element of the «executed Renaissance» generation of artists, combining the Dionysian tradition with the Apollonian culture. The aesthetic platform that united the neoclassicists was the love to the word, to the strict form, to the great heritage of the world literature. They realized the sonnet as a «strict style», as a «severe» form. Ukrainian neoclassicists set the task of creating a «great style of Ukrainian literature» based on Greco-Roman antiquity and European Parnassians; hence there is a cult of strict classical forms (sonnet, octave, Alexandrine verse, elegiac distich). When Ukrainian neoclassicists spoke, they did not declaim ideological and aesthetic manifestos. Ukrainian neoclassicists, in contrast to the Russian ones, were distinguished by greater creative conservatism: if the latter put Pushkin as a role model, the first were oriented towards Greco-Roman antiquity and French Parnassians (the first edition of Ukrainian neoclassicism was «The Anthology of Roman Poetry» by M. Zerov, 1920), strictly adhered to canonical classical forms. Conclusions. The genre canon of the sonnet implies conceptuality that must be realized through a certain compositional rhythm according to the universal scheme: thesis – antithesis – synthesis. Such scheme of the sonnet dramatic line development «tells» the poet the most general direction in the development of thought, mood, and contemplation. The sonnet allows to resolve contradictions. Consequently, it is a balance between the stable and the variable, a dialogue with yourself, with the world; this is the beauty of dramatic trembles of poetic content. Finally, this is a distinctive stylistic thinking which attracts primarily the poets of the rationalist mindset.

Eutropius as an oriental

Eutropius, eunuch who became the consul of the Roman Empire in 399 AD under Arcadius, is a villain of Claudius Claudian’s invective In Eutropium. Argumentation in this piece is based on many negative topoi employed in the earlier Roman poetry. In doing this, the poet makes a particular use of stereotypes connected with the East, by dint of which he can attribute these features to the Eastern Roman Empire (epitomised by Eutropius) and – at the same time – to show that the right Roman virtues are fostered in the Western Roman Empire, controlled by the poet’s patron, Stilicho.

Venationes en la poesía latina tardoimperial. El poder de la arena y su final

This article analyzes various passages from Claudian’s and Gorippus’s political poems (Claud., Ruf., 2; Theod.; Stil., 3; VI Hon.; Goripp., Laud. Iust. Min., 3) which describe hunting games in the Roman arena (venationes) and have communicative aims: they either praise officeholders (consuls, generals, and emperors), or they criticize their opponents. This theme plays a fundamental role in early imperial poetry. But while early imperial poets (Calpurnius, Statius, Martial, and Juvenal) convey their message of praise or invective with briefer passages, Claudian and Gorippus present concatenated scenes, with the effect of increasingly persuading and impressing the reader. The role of the venatorial subject in Christian poets such as Prudentius (Prud., Ham.; c. Symm.) will be treated as well. Finally, this essay aims to establish when venationes are last attested in (late) Roman poetry.

Dichtung der augusteischen Epoche und der frühen Kaiserzeit

Niklas Holzberg, who until his retirement in 2011 was a professor of Classics at the University of Munich, of-fers a collection of twenty-three papers on Roman poetry of the Augustan age and the early imperial era. Published between 1997 and 2019 in periodicals and anthologies, fifteen of them were originally written in English or Italian and are published here in German for the first time. They discuss works by Virgil, Horace, Ovid, the elegists, Martial, Ps.-Virgil, Ps.-Tibullus and Ps.-Seneca. The interpretations of the texts focus on self-reflection as expressed by intertextuality and implicit metapoetics, sequential reading of poetry books and the recognition of pseudepigraphs as literary games played by anonymous authors impersonating classical poets.

After-Lives

This chapter explores biographical receptions of Greek and Roman poets in the twentieth century. Classical scholarship has now begun to recognize ancient biography as a creative mode of reception in Antiquity. In the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, reading the texts of Greek and Roman poetry for the lives of their authors has been an especially rich and multifaceted mode of reception, providing for many readers a means of grappling with the ancient texts within the changing cultural landscape of modernity. Yet, unlike the medieval and early modern traditions of literary biography, in the twentieth century, academic and creative Lives have tended to part company. When it comes to Greek and Roman poets, though a few full-length literary biographies that still attempt to claim factual status have been produced, conventional narrative biographies that aim to set out the ‘facts’ are generally only found in isagogic contexts such as introductions to texts and translations, or textbooks of literary history. Moreover, partly because modern authors are acutely aware that there are few ‘facts’ beyond the poets’ works themselves on which to base their material, and partly as a broader consequence of modern preoccupations with fragmentation and the limits of knowledge, creative life-writing about the ancient poets in this period is found more frequently in ludic snapshots rather than full-blown narrative biographies.