Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T09:25:50.646Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The drowned and the saved: shipwrecks and the cursus of Latin love elegy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

L. B. T. Houghton
L. B. T. Houghton
Affiliation:
University College London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Throughout the corpus of Latin love elegy, the imaginary tombs envisaged by the elegists for their own personae and for other inhabitants of their poetic world display a striking tendency to take on the characteristic attributes and personalities of those interred within. The final resting-place of Propertius, for instance, that self-proclaimed acolyte of Callimachean miniaturism and exclusivity, is to be sequestered from the degrading attentions of the passing populace (Prop. 3.16.25–30) and crowned with the poet's laurel (2.13.33–4). What remains of his meagre form will rest in a ‘tiny little urn’ (paruula testa, 2.13.32) beneath a monument declaring the lover's slavery to a single passion (2.13.35–6), and the grave is to be attended, or so he hopes, by the object of that passion herself (3.16.23–4), or occasionally (though he is not so confident of this) by his patron Maecenas (2.1.71–8). Likewise the memorial designed by Ovid for Corinna's pet parrot - an imitatrix ales endowed with the most distinctive foibles of the elegiac tradition - in Amores 2.6, comprising a burial mound pro corpore magnus (2.6.59) topped with a tombstone described as exiguus (‘tiny’, 2.6.60; cf. Prop. 2.1.72, 2.13.33), exhibits an elegiac emphasis worthy of the parrot's human counterparts among Ovid's poetic predecessors.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Cambridge Classical Journal , Volume 53 , 2007 , pp. 161 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alfonsi, L. (1956) ‘Otium e vita d'amore negli elegiaci augustei’, in Studi in onore di Aristide Calderini e Roberto Paribeni, vol. 1, Milan, 187–209.Google Scholar
Barchiesi, A. (2001) Speaking volumes. Narrative and intertext in Ovid and other Latin poets, ed. and trans. Fox, M. and Marchesi, S., London.Google Scholar
Boucher, J.-P. (1966) Caius Cornélius Gallus, Paris.Google Scholar
Boyd, B. W. (1987) ‘The death of Corinna's parrot reconsidered: poetry and Ovid's Amores’, CJ 82, 199–207.Google Scholar
Boyd, B. W. (1997) Ovid's literary loves. Influence and innovation in the Amores, Ann Arbor.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bretzigheimer, G. (2001) Ovids Amores. Poetik in der Erotik, Tübingen.Google Scholar
Cairns, F. (2006) Sextus Propertius, the Augustan elegist, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Ciccarelli, I. (2004) ‘Il motivo della tempesta in Properzio e Ovidio’, in Santini, C. and Santucci, F. (eds.) Properzio tra storia arte mito, Assisi, 183–97.Google Scholar
Courtney, E. (1969) ‘Three poems of Propertius’, BICS 16, 70–87.Google Scholar
Day, A. A. (1938) The origins of Latin love-elegy, Oxford.Google Scholar
Frécaut, J.-M. (1972) L'esprit et l'humour chez Ovide, Grenoble.Google Scholar
Georgoudi, S. (1988) ‘La mer, la mort et le discours des épigrammes funéraires’, AION ArchStAnt 10, 53–61.Google Scholar
Goold, G. P. (1988) ‘On editing Propertius’, in Horsfall, N. (ed.) Vir bonus discendi peritus. Studies in celebration of Otto Skutsch's eightieth birthday, BICS suppl. 51, London, 27–38.Google Scholar
Goold, G. P. (1989) ‘Problems in editing Propertius’, in Grant, J. N. (ed.) Editing Greek and Latin texts, New York, 97–119.Google Scholar
Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L. (1965) The Greek anthology. Hellenistic epigrams, 2 vols., Cambridge.Google Scholar
Griffin, J. (1985) Latin poets and Roman life, London.Google Scholar
Günther, H.-C. (1997) Quaesliones Propertianae, Mnemosyne suppl. 169, Leiden, New York and Cologne.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunnella, A. (1995) ‘Morti improvvise e violente nelle iscrizioni latine’, in Hinard, F. and Lambert, M.-F. (eds.) La mort au quotidien dans le monde romain. Actes du colloque organisé par l'Université de Paris IV (Paris-Sorbonne 7–9 octobre 1993), Paris, 9–22.Google Scholar
Gurval, R. A. (1995) Actium and Augustus. The politics and emotions of civil war, Ann Arbor.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, J. B. (1989) ‘Problems in Ovid's Tristia’, in Diggle, J., Hall, J. B., and Jocelyn, H. D. (eds.) Studies in Latin literature in honour of C. O. Brink, PCPS suppl. 15, Cambridge, 20–38.Google Scholar
Hardie, P. R. (2002) Ovid's poetics of illusion, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hinds, S. E. (1987) The metamorphosis of Persephone. Ovid and the self-conscious muse, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hintermeier, C. M. (1993) Die Briefpaare in Ovids Heroides. Tradition und Innovation, Palingenesia 41, Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Hubbard, M. (1974) Propertius, London.Google Scholar
Hutton, J. (1935) The Greek Anthology in Italy to the year 1800, Ithaca and London.Google Scholar
Ingleheart, J. (2006) ‘Ovid, Tristia 1.2: high drama on the high seas’, G&R n.s. 53, 73–91.Google Scholar
Johnson, T. S. (2004) A symposion of praise. Horace returns to lyric in Odes IV, Madison and London.Google Scholar
Keith, A. M. (1999) ‘Slender verse: Roman elegy and ancient rhetorical theory’, Mnemosyne 52, 41–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, D. F. (1993) The arts of love. Five studies in the discourse of Roman love elegy, Cambridge.Google Scholar
La Penna, A. (1950) ‘Movimento e ritmo epigrammatico nelle elegie di Properzio’, Maia 3, 9–15.Google Scholar
Lattimore, R. (1962) Themes in Greek and Latin epitaphs, Urbana.Google Scholar
Lefèvre, E. (1966) Propertius ludibundus. Elemente des Humors in seinen Elegien, Heidelberg.Google Scholar
Liberman, G. (1996) ‘Réflexions sur le texte et la composition de l'élégie de Properce sur la mort de Paetus (3, 7)’, REL 74, 168–81.Google Scholar
Lieburg, G. (1962) Puella divina. Die Gestalt der göttlichen Geliebten bei Catull im Zusammenhang der antiken Dichtung, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Lilja, S. (1965) The Roman elegists' attitude to women, Helsinki.Google Scholar
Livrea, E. (2002) ‘Il Philoctetes di Euforione’, ZPE 139, 35–9.Google Scholar
Lyne, R. O. A. M. (1980) The Latin love poets, from Catullus to Horace, Oxford.Google Scholar
Lyne, R. O. A. M. (1998) ‘Propertius and Tibullus: early exchanges’, CQ n.s. 48, 519–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maleuvre, J.-Y. (1997) ‘La mort de Virgile d'apres Properce et Ovide’, L'Antiquité Classique 66, 177–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maleuvre, J.-Y. (1998) Jeux de masques dans l'‘élégie latine, Louvain/Namur.Google Scholar
Michalopoulos, A. N. (2005) ‘Tibullus and Delia, Leander and Hero: Tibullan echoes in Ov. Her. 18–19’. Eranos 103, 83–96.Google Scholar
Miller, P. A. (2004) Subjecting verses. Latin love elegy and the emergence of the real, Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morsley, K. (1975), ‘Propertius 3.7’, CQ n.s. 25, 315–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murgatroyd, P. (1995) ‘The sea of love’, CQ n.s. 45, 9–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, K. S. (1990) ‘Ovid's tecta ars: Amores 2.6, “Programmatics and the parrot”’, EMC 34 n.s. 9, 367–74.Google Scholar
Myers, K. S. (1996) ‘The poet and the procuress. The lena in Latin love elegy’, JRS 86, 1–21.Google Scholar
Nethercut, W. R. (1971a) ‘Propertius 3.7.21–24’, Hermes 99, 248–51.Google Scholar
Nethercut, W. R. (1971b) ‘Propertius 2.15.41–48; Antony at Actium’, RSC 19, 299–301.Google Scholar
Newman, J. K. (1997) Augustan Propertius. The recapitulation of a genre, Spudasmata 63, Hildesheim, Zurich and New York.Google Scholar
O'Neill, K. (1998) ‘Symbolism and sympathetic magic in Propertius 4.5’, CJ 94, 49–80.Google Scholar
O'Neill, K. (1999) ‘Ovid and Propertius: reflexive annotation in Amores 1.8’, Mnemosyne 52, 286–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orlebeke, A. (1996) ‘Propertius 3.7.1–12’, CQ n.s. 46, 416–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papanghelis, T. D. (1987) Propertius: a Hellenistic poet on love and death, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pichon, R. (1902) De sermone amatorio apud Latinos elegiarum scriptores, Paris.Google Scholar
Putnam, M. C. J. (1982) Essays on Latin lyric, elegy, and epic, Princeton.Google Scholar
Robertson, F. (1969) ‘Lament for Paetus - Propertius 3.7’, TAPA 100, 377–86.Google Scholar
Robinson, M. (2006) ‘Augustan responses to the Aeneid’, in Clarke, M. J., Currie, B. G. F. and Lyne, R. O. A. M. (eds.) Epic interactions. Perspectives on Homer, Virgil, and the epic tradition presented to Jasper Griffin by former pupils, Oxford, 185–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, D. O., Jr. (1975) Backgrounds to Augustan poetry: Callus, elegy and Rome, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Saylor, C. F. (1967) ‘Querelae: Propertius' distinctive, technical name for his elegy’, Agon 1, 142–9.Google Scholar
Schmidt, V. (1985) ‘Corinnas psittacus im Elysium (Ovid Amores 2, 6)’, Lampas 18, 214–28.Google Scholar
Schmitzer, U. (1997) ‘Gallus im Elysium. Ein Versuch über Ovids Trauerelegie auf den toten Papagei Corinnas (am. 2,6)’, Gymnasium 104, 245–70.Google Scholar
Schulz-Vanheyden, E. (1969) Properz und das griechische Epigramm, diss., Munster.Google Scholar
Shackleton, Bailey D. R. (1956) Propertiana, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sharrock, A. R. (1994) Seduction and repetition in Ovid's Ars Amatoria 2, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smyth, W. R. (1970) Thesaurus criticus ad Sexti Propertii textum, Mnemosyne suppl. 12, Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spentzou, E. (2003) Readers and writers in Ovid's Heroides. Transgressions of genre and gender, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stahl, H.-P. (1985) Propertius: ‘love’ and ‘war’. Individual and state under Augustus, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London.Google Scholar
Steidle, W. (1962) ‘Das Motiv der Lebenswahl bei Tibull und Properz’, WS 75, 100–40.Google Scholar
Suter, A. (1989) ‘Ovid, from image to narrative: Amores 1.8 and 3.6’, CW 83, 15–20.Google Scholar
Syme, R. (1986) The Augustan aristocracy, Oxford.Google Scholar
Thomas, R. F. (2004) ‘“Drownded in the Tide”: The nauagika and some “problems” in Augustan poetry’, in Acosta-Hughes, B., Kosmetatou, E. and Baumbach, M. (eds.) Labored in papyrus leaves: perspectives on an epigram collection attributed to Posidippus (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309), Cambridge, Mass, and London, 259–75.Google Scholar
Tränkle, H. (1960) Die Sprachkunst des Properz und die Tradition der lateinischen Dichtersprache, Hermes Einzelschriften 15, Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Trappes-Lomax, J. (2005) ‘Sub aqua, sub aqua: submerged repetition in Ovid and Rutilius Namatianus’, PCPS 51, 86–9.Google Scholar
Volk, K. (1996) ‘Hero und Leander in Ovids Doppelbriefen’, Gymnasium 103, 95–106.Google Scholar
Walsh, T. (1987) ‘Propertius' Paetus elegy’, LCM 12, 66–9.Google Scholar
Warden, J. (1980) Fallax opus: poet and reader in the elegies of Propertius, Toronto, Buffalo and London.Google Scholar
Watson, L. C. (1991) Arae. The curse poetry of antiquity, Leeds.Google Scholar
Watt, W. S. (2004a) ‘Propertiana’, RhM 147, 298–302.Google Scholar
Watt, W. S. (2004b) ‘Error Wattianus’, CQ n.s. 54, 658–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, L. P. (1966) ‘The continuity of Propertius ii. 13’, CR n.s. 16, 141–4.Google Scholar
Williams, M. F. (2006) ‘The new Posidippus papyri and Propertius' shipwreck odes (Prop. 1.17; 3.7)’, Classica et Mediaevalia 57, 103–23.Google Scholar
Wimmel, W. (1960) Kallimachos in Rom. Die Nachfolge seines apologetischen Dichtens in der Augusteerzeit, Hermes Einzelschriften 16, Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Wyke, M. (2002) The Roman mistress. Ancient and modern representations, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar