Sicily, the Classical Tradition and Interpretative Possibilities in John Barclay’s Argenis

This article explores reasons for the choice of Sicily as the main backdrop for John Barclay’s 1621 Neo-Latin novel Argenis. It suggests that the selection of Sicily is driven in part by the interpretative possibilities raised by this location, in particular, those fuelled by controversies regarding the rational and mythic which were attached to the island. It focusses on the rationalizing and mythic approaches associated with Sicily in the classical and post-classical tradition in the areas of volcanic activity and the discovery of gigantic bones. By means of a close reading of the episode in which King Meleander entertains Radirobanes in camp, followed by a wider discussion of the flaws of Meleander and Radirobanes and the theme of interpretation in the novel, it explores how Barclay exploits such approaches to showcase the failures of these leaders. It also dismisses the idea that the Argenis has a controlling divine framework which would run counter to the novel’s interest in the potentiality of interpretation.

A Classical Source for Petrarch’s Conceit of the Binding Knot of Hair: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses

The conceit of the beloved’s hair ensnaring and binding the poet’s heart and soul is common in Renaissance poetry and particularly widespread in the tradition of Petrarchan love lyric. The topos can be traced back to Petrarch’s canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, in which Laura’s golden hair is often described in terms of knots and laces tying both the poet’s heart and soul. No classical antecedent has previously been identified for the image. In this study, I propose a possible classical source for the characteristic Petrarchan motif of Laura’s binding hair knot: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, a manuscript of which the poet owned and which he read and annotated several times. In particular, I show how passages such as Lucius’s celebration of the beauty of women’s hair (Metamorphoses, II.8–9), and especially his declaration of love to Photis, an oath he takes on ʻthat sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spiritʼ (ibid., III.23), can be convincingly regarded as a source for Petrarch’s conceit. In addition to the value inherent in the detection of a new source for an influential Petrarchan topos, the present study may have some further implications. It could offer novel arguments for the dating of a series of Petrarchan poems, and it could foster a potentially fruitful reappraisal of the influence of Apuleius’s work on Petrarch’s vernacular poetry.

Spectres of Euripides: Time, Translation and Modernism in H.D.’s Euripides

The modernist period was one of intense engagement with antiquity. It was also a period concerned with radical ideas about time put forward by Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein that questioned traditional understandings of the relationship between past and present. This article considers these two aspects of the modernist period through H.D.’s translations of Euripides: it argues that H.D.’s equivocal position in literary modernism and the imagist movement (as demonstrated by her translations from Hippolytus), her prosodic experimentation with Greek verse forms in her translations from Hecuba and Iphigenia at Aulis and finally her emphasis on temporal themes in her Freud-inspired translation of Ion can be all read in such a way to cast new light on the complex temporalities of the translation of classical texts and the modernist reception of the classics.