Culture and Literature in Latin Late Antiquity

Continuities and Discontinuities

Paola Francesca Moretti, Roberta Ricci, Chiara Torre (eds)

Pages: 400 p.
Size:156 x 234 mm

Language(s):English, French, Italian
Publication Year:2016

Buy print version

€ 120,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE

ISBN: 978-2-503-55735-9
Paperback
Available

Buy e-version

€ 120,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE

ISBN: 978-2-503-58402-7
E-book
Available

A collection of studies on continuity and change in the literary culture of Latin Late Antiquity

Subject(s)

Review(s)

« (…) il faut saluer ce volume comme un bel apport à une meilleure connaissance de l’innovation littéraire dans l’Antiquité tardive. » (Marie-Pierre Bussières, dans Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2017.05.22)

"(…) this rich volume contains many valuable and interesting contributions to the study of the cultural, intellectual and educational history of Latin late antiquity." (Tim Denecker, in Augustiniana, 67, 2017, p. 356)

« Au total, ce volume présente un apport notable à la connaissance de la culture antique et des phénomènes de réception » (Jean-Louis Charlet, dans Latomus, 77/1, 2018, p. 281)

«(questo volume) costituisce a nostro avviso, per ricchezza e innovatività di metodo e risultati, un nuovo punto di riferimento per indagare il processo di trasformazione culturale nella tarda antichità.» (Luciana Furbetta, in L'Antiquité Classique, 87, 2018, p. 395)

Summary

In recent decades many valuable studies have been highlighting the cultural changes that deeply affected the Roman world between the fourth and sixth centuries AD. These changes, mostly due to Christianization as well as reactions to it, occurred in literary and cultural fields. In the past they have been explained through a well-defined pattern, namely a twofold process, adapting changing contents to unchanging formal structures. However, this pattern may not be effective today, given the new framework arising from the increasing amount of data and its close examination.

The papers herein collected deal with many specific texts or issues, all included in the so-called literary area of ‘secularity’ (according to the definition by R. A. Markus). The aim of this case-studies gallery, ranging from the fourth to seventh centuries AD, is precisely to offer a multi-layered approach to the complex, unclear-cut interweaving of continuity and discontinuity. Indeed, this is at the heart of the transformation process of intellectual horizons in Latin Late Antiquity.

This volume consists of three sections, devoted to investigating the transformation of cultural heritage in poetry and prose respectively, and the key role of school education in shaping late ancient ‘secular’ culture.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Section I: The Transformation of the Cultural Heritage: Poetry
Gli epigrammi di Ausonio per le fonti del Danubio. Tradizione letteraria e arte figurativa (Brunella Moroni)
Honorius in Rome: A Pagan Adventus (Claud., Hon. VI Cons.) (Isabella Gualandri)
Chaos e ordine nel De raptu Proserpinae di Claudiano (Roberto Mandile)
Tituli for the Illiterates? The (Sub-)Genre of the Tituli Historiarum between Ekphrasis, Iconography and Catechesis (Francesco Lubian)
Le mot et les choses: epigramma chez Sidoine Apollinaire (Franca Ela Consolino)
Some Remarks on the Metra in Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae. Examples of Anapestic Dimeters and Elegiac Couplets (Cecilia Floris)
Appunti sulla poetica ennodiana: nuove declinazioni della silva nella latinità tardoantica (Vincent Zarini)
Metrica vis sacris non est incognita libris. La bible et sa facies metrica à partir de la lettre d'Arator à Vigile (Roberto Mori)
Le renouvellement formel de la poésie élégiaque dans la littérature latine chrétienne (fin IV^e-moitié V^e s.) (Michele Cutino)
Letteratura e medicina: percorsi di una metafora nella tarda antichità latina (IV-VI sec. d.C.) (Cecilia Pavarani)

Section II: The Transformation of the Cultural Heritage: Prose
Ambrose, Democritus and the Risus of the Sapiens (Iob, III. 3. 9) (Roberta Ricci)
The First Book of Symmachus' Correspondence as a Separate Collection (Gavin Kelly)
Ammianus Ciceronianus? (Jan den Boeft)
Emperors’ Physiognomy (Raffaele Passarella)
Nisi modum epistolici characteris excederem. Jerome and Epistolary brevitas (Paola Francesca Moretti)
Lucretia in the World of Sophistopolis: A Rhetorical Reading of Aug. Civ. I. 19 (Luigi Pirovano)
The Dynamics of Seneca's Reception in the Late Ancient Christian Tradition: Some Methodological Remarks (Chiara Torre)
Histoires de mots. À propos des adjectifs imatilis, vernatilis et venatilis de Cassiod. Var. III. 53. 1 (Nicoletta Brocca)
Spoudogeloion, Hyperbole and Myth in Fulgentius’ Mythologiae (Martina Venuti)

Section III: The Transmission of the Cultural Heritage: School, Texts, and Paratexts
Macrobius and Servius: Commenting Strategies in Comparison (Isabella Canetta)
[abunde] suffecerat ... sed: un’idea ricorrente nelle Interpretationes Vergilianae di Tiberio Claudio Donato (Alice Daghini)
The Distichs of Cato in Late Antique Spain (W. Martin Bloomer)
Tra Porfirione e Servio: annotazioni Pseudacronee sull'ode I. 37 di Orazio (Chiara Formenti)

List of abbreviations
List of ancient authors and works
The authors