Letters in the Sky: Reading the Signs in Aratus' Phaenomena

Volk, Katharina

doi:10.1353/ajp.2012.0012

Cited by 15 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…3 For Lucretius' wordplays and the underlying theory of elementa, see, above all, Snyder (1980), Gale (2001), and Kronenberg (2019). For Aratus' stars as textual signs ("letters in the sky"), see Volk (2012). For wordplays and their role in making the universe readable in ancient didactic poetry in general, see Gale (2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Muses in the Sky: Lucretius’ Invocative Telestich and its Multiple Revivals in Latin Poetry

Tamás

2023

tcj

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In the first seven lines of his opening proem, where we notoriously find a Hymn to Venus, Lucretius compensates the Muses with an invocative Muse-telestich spelling MuSAS/MuSIS, which is signposted by caeli … labentia signa and thus connected to the Aratean tradition of both heavenly and written “signs”. Moreover, Lucretius’ telestich establishes a firm tradition including (so far) Catullus, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, who mark some of their most emphatic—predominantly, but not exclusively, proemial—passages with variants of the Lucretian Muse-telestich and adjust them to their respective poetic programs. The Muse-telestich thus became a textual device by which Latin poets watermarked their highest poetic aspirations in exceedingly creative ways.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Muses in the Sky: Lucretius’ Invocative Telestich and its Multiple Revivals in Latin Poetry

Tamás

2023

tcj

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“…The boustrophedon movement of this technopaignion is signalled to the reader by the key-words δεξιὰ σημαίνει … (ἀρίστη > ἀριστερά) … βουσί. 15 See Volk (2012). 16 We also need to mention that Aratus seems to compose a wordplay on his own name in the two first lines of the poem (ἐῶμεν / ἄρρητον, 1-2), on which see Bing (1990) and Katz (2008).…”

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Virgilian Echoes in theAenigmata Symposii: Two UnnoticedTechnopaignia

Castelletti

Siegenthaler

2016

Philologus

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This paper aims to provide a new interpretation of the first riddles of the Aenigmata ascribed to Symposius, discussing two technopaignia that seem to have gone unnoticed by scholars. The first one is the boustrophedon acrostic TAVROD ("by the ox" or "from the ox"), embedded in the opening riddle of the collection (Graphium/Stilus). The second acrostic is in the third riddle (Anulus cum gemma): the boustrophedon sequence spells the word CIRIUS (or CISIUS), which could be interpreted as the author's signature (his name would be Caerius or Caesius), or as the adjective cereus, "of wax", or as a transliteration of the Greek κύριος "Lord". The sources of inspiration for these features are the boustrophedon acrostics ASTILOMV (= A STILO M[aronis] V[ergili]), and MOS QIS EI (= mos quis ei?) composed by Virgil at the very beginning of the Aeneid (the poet's sphragis). Virgil (whose source of inspiration is Aratus) used the boustrophedon to allude to the origins of writing, and to archaic Rome. The author of the Aenigmata, revealing his mastery of the techniques of acrostic composition, provides a late antique reading of his sources, acknowledging the genuine character of the Virgilian sphragis.

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“…Martin 1956, Ludwig 1963, Solmsen 1966, Sale 1966, Erren 1967, Pendergraft 1982, Lewis 1992, Hunter 1995, Schiesaro 1996, Kidd 1997, Martin 1998, Gee 2000, Fakas 2001, Possanza 2004, Volk 2012 …”

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Aratus and the Astronomical Tradition

Gee¹,

Ryan²

2016

Aest

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takes up an ambitious task: an explanation of the lasting importance of the Phaenomena of Aratus, who transferred into Homeric verse a fourth century astronomical prose treatise of the same name by Eudoxus of Cnidus in the 270's bc. Fusing traditions of technical astronomy and meteorology with the didactic poetry of the Archaic poet Hesiod, the Phaenomena was an immediate classic and remained widely read and imitated for centuries to come. Although the poem has begun to receive more attention from scholars in the past 50 years, 1 a general study of its reception has yet to emerge. Gee seeks to fill this void by inserting the Phaenomena into a larger tradition of astronomical thought spanning the seven centuries between Plato and the Roman emperor Julian. Although Aratus' importance as a poet generally goes unchallenged, Gee's is the broadest treatment of the Phaenomena and its translations by Cicero, Germanicus Caesar, and Avienus as an astronomical tradition referenced at length by several important Latin poets. In the end, the success of the arguments relies on an intricate array of detailed, close readings of text, which compel to varying degrees. Even where these arguments fail to be completely convincing, versions of Gee's theses nonetheless remain plausible. Aratus and the Astronomical Tradition constitutes a large step in the general study of Aratus' ancient reception. In what follows, I will summarize and describe the arguments of each chapter, commenting on Gee's argumentative strategy along the way.Gee divides the Introduction into six sections:

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Letters in the Sky: Reading the Signs in Aratus' Phaenomena

Cited by 15 publications

References 36 publications

Muses in the Sky: Lucretius’ Invocative Telestich and its Multiple Revivals in Latin Poetry

Muses in the Sky: Lucretius’ Invocative Telestich and its Multiple Revivals in Latin Poetry

Virgilian Echoes in theAenigmata Symposii: Two UnnoticedTechnopaignia

Aratus and the Astronomical Tradition

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