Latin Love Elegy and the Dawn of the Ovidian Age
A Study of the Versus Eporedienses and the Latin Classics
Marek Thue Kretschmer
- Pages: 175 p.
- Size:178 x 254 mm
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:2020
- € 80,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-58703-5
- Paperback
- Available
- € 80,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-58704-2
- E-book
- Available
First book-length study of the elegiac love poem Versus Eporedienses (ca. 1080)
“(…) exciting banquet of ancient and medieval comparanda that K. has compiled, as thickly woven and as rewarding to read as the operis varii delicie (152) of the VE.” (Cynthia White, in The Classical Review, 70/2, 2020, p. 509)
“Nel complesso, un’indagine magistrale, questa condotta da Kretschmer intorno al testo, al commento e all’interpretazione dei Versus Eporedienses, della quale non potrà non tenere conto, in futuro, chiunque volesse accostarsi non solo al poemetto, ma, più in generale, alla poesia d’amore latina fra i secc. XI e XII.” (Armando Bisanti, in ExClass, 25, 2021, p. 478)
“Il lavoro di Kretschmer è senz’altro da elogiare perché ripropone all’attenzione di studiosi e pubblico un testo importante e solo in apparenza isolato per la sua specificità, in grado di illuminare Ivrea nell’XI secolo, fornire di riflesso dati sulle strutture formative, le biblioteche, gli interessi culturali di chi vi gravitava, affini a quelli coltivati quasi negli stessi anni al di là delle Alpi (...) La parte del lavoro che si apprezza maggiormente è costituita senz’altro dal commento e dalle appendici, rigorose ed esaustive; condotte con standard scientifici chiari, esse sono fruibili anche in ambito didattico-universitario, riuscendo ad descrivere il testo in maniera poliprospettica e diacronica. L’analisi degli elementi connotativi sul piano tematico che rimandano al contesto storico, la ricchezza di topoi letterari, uniti all’indagine capillare sui rapporti intertestuali (...) rendono il volume uno strumento prezioso per la conoscenza dei Versus, che è fondamentale proprio per la rete ideale in cui si colloca: importante acquisizione che grazie a questo studio che emerge con più lucida e chiara evidenza.” (Elisabette Bartoli, in Studi Medievali, 63/1, 2022, pp. 390-393)
“His philological acumen and generous explanations of unusual usage will be veryhelpful to student readers puzzling over unfamiliar forms and extensions of meaning, as will his full citations of the standard Latin reference works (...) The monograph as a whole is a welcome addition to the dossier of medieval Latin lovepoetry. As a stand-alone work with helpful commentary and up-to-the-minute bibliography, this volume deserves a place on medieval Latin syllabi as a very useful student edition. Scholars willfind much to admire as well in the author’s wide reading in classical Latin sources andthorough demonstration of the literary texture of the poem in its relations with the burgeoning Ovidian aetas.” (Alison Keith, in Speculum 98/1, 2023, pp. 290-291)
Marek Thue Kretschmer is Professor of Medieval Latin Literature at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is the author of Rewriting Roman History in the Middle Ages (2007), editor of La typologie biblique comme forme de pensée dans l’historiographie médiévale (2014) and has published widely on the reception of the Latin classics, notably on the medieval reception of Ovid.
The Versus Eporedienses (Verses from Ivrea), written around the year 1080 and attributed to a certain Wido, is a highly fascinating elegiac love poem celebrating worldly pleasures in an age usually associated with contemptus mundi. One of the poem’s intriguing features, its extensive use of the Latin classics, especially of Ovid, makes it a precursor of the poetry of the so-called twelfth-century renaissance. In this first book-length study of the poem, the author provides a historical contextualisation, an edition and translation, a verse-by-verse commentary, a detailed analysis of the classical sources and a discussion of its similarities with contemporary and later medieval poetry.
Introduction
• Text and Translation
• Commentary
• Sources of Inspiration
• The Versus Eporedienses and the Dawn of the Twelfth Century
• Similarities and Matches in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Love Poetry
• Bibliography • Index auctorum et carminum • Index locorum similium
• Index locorum similium per ordinem auctorum et carminum digestus