Latin Poetry in the Ancient Greek Novels

Abstract

This work establishes and explores connections between Greek imperial literature and Latin poetry. As such, it challenges conventional thinking about literary and cultural interaction of the period, which assumes that imperial Greeks are not much interested in Roman cultural products (especially literature). Instead, it argues that Latin poetry is a crucially important frame of reference for Greek imperial literature. This has significant ramifications, bearing on the question of bilingual allusion and intertextuality, as well as on that of cultural interaction during the imperial period more generally. The argument mobilizes the Greek novels—a literary form that flourished under the Roman Empire, offering narratives of love, separation, and eventual reunion in and around the Mediterranean basin—as a series of case studies. Three of these novels in particular—Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe, Achilles Tatius’ Clitophon and Leucippe, and Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe—are analysed for the extent to which they allude to Latin poetry, and for the effects (literary and ideological) of such allusion. After an Introduction that establishes the cultural context and parameters of the study, each chapter pursues the strategies of an individual novelist in connection with Latin poetry: Chariton and Latin love elegy (Chapter 1); Chariton and Ovidian epistles and exilic poetry (Chapter 2); Chariton and Vergil’s Aeneid (Chapter 3); Achilles Tatius and Latin love elegy (Chapter 4); Achilles Tatius and Vergil’s Aeneid (Chapter 5); Achilles Tatius and the theme of bodily destruction in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lucan’s Bellum Civile, and Seneca’s Phaedra (Chapter 6); Longus and Vergil’s Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid (Chapter 7). The work offers the first book-length study of the role of Latin literature in Greek literary culture under the empire and thus provides fresh perspectives and new approaches to the literature and culture of this period.

The Work of Oskar Herzberg—Did Psychosis or the Residence in a Psychiatric Institution Serve as a Catalyst for Creativity?

“…Besides Jolowicz and Prinzhorn, our research could only identify Günter Anders as another active protagonist who has intensively discussed Herzberg’s art in the context of his mental illness. The philosopher and later cofounder of the progressive antinuclear movement Günther Anders gave a talk on Peinture des fous (The painting of mentally ill) on the occasion of the Herzberg Exhibition in Paris in 1934 (Jolowicz, 1934). In his lecture, Anders contradicted Jolowicz’s and Prinzhorn’s idea of the emanation of a predisposed creative urge through mental illness.…”

“…Jolowicz promoted and documented Herzberg’s artistic development not only during his lifetime but also after his patient died in 1917: he made a significant contribution to publicize Herzberg as an artist by organizing various solo exhibitions of Herzberg’s works, including one in his hometown Poznań in 1919 (Jolowicz, 1882–1958) and one in Leipzig in 1922 (Leipzig Art Association, 1922). After his forced emigration in 1934 following the Nazi dictatorship, he took his collection of Herzberg’s works with him into his French exile and organized another Herzberg exhibition in Paris (Jolowicz, 1934). The works collected by Jolowicz were confiscated by the Gestapo after the German troops invaded Paris, just before he could escape to the United States in 1941 (Jolowicz, 1882–1958).…”