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The Politics of Poetics: Nonnus' Dionysiaca and the World of Late Antiquity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Robert Shorrock
Robert Shorrock*
Affiliation:
Eton College
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Extract

Over the last thirty years or so our understanding of the world of late antiquity has undergone a radical transformation. In addition to the important contributions by historians such as Peter Brown (on the body and society) and Averil Cameron (on the evolution of Christian discourse), new perspectives have also been opened up on the material culture of the later empire. In the arena of literary criticism, however, signs of any analogous transformation have been much less obvious. Though, of course, it is easy to overstate the case, it is nevertheless clear from the bibliographic record that the literature of the late antique period has not yet been subject to the intense critical attention of other epochs, such as the Second Sophistic. This article will attempt on a necessarily modest scale to address this lack of critical attention.

My primary focus is the fifth-century CE epic poem, the Dionysiaca of Nonnus, a product of Roman Egypt, written in Greek in forty-eight chapter-length books. It runs to over 21,000 hexameter lines—some five thousand lines longer than Homer's Iliad—and tells the story of the wine-loving Dionysus, the hero whose destiny it is to become a god. Though its influence on the wider literary culture of late antiquity was profound, it has remained a marginalised and neglected text within the history of modern classical scholarship. The Dionysiaca exists as an often quoted yet rarely read compendium of obscure mythological information, and is periodically mined for allusions to earlier and implicitly ‘better’ poets whose works have only survived in fragmentary form, but it is rarely considered on its own terms.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 37 , Issue 1-2 , 2008 , pp. 99 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 2008

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References

1. Brown (1988); Averil Cameron (1991); on material culture see, for example, Eisner (1995); Smith (2006).

2. One of the most important contributions to the field of late antique literary criticism (now almost twenty years old) is Roberts (1989); for more recent contributions see, for example, Johnson (2006); Scourfield (2007).

3. For a brief introduction to the Dionysiaca see Shorrock (2005) 374–85.

4. For an overview see Shorrock (2001) 1–3.

5. See Vian (1976), building on the work of the equally great German scholar Rudolf Keydell — see esp. Keydell (1959).

6. Hopkinson (1994c); Shorrock (2001).

7. For a lucid discussion of the question of authorship see Whitby (2007a) 199–201.

8. Livrea (1989).

9. See Agosti (2003a); Accorinti (1996). Agosti and Accorinti followed up their work on the Paraphrase with contributions to the recent four volume BUR commentary on Nonnus: Agosti (2004); Accorinti (2004).

10. See Shorrock (2006). For a recent interesting attempt to explore the intersection between the Dionysiaca and the narrative of Christ (with reference to the Icarius and Erigone episode in Book 47) see Spanoudakis (2007).

11. See, for example, Hopkinson (1994b) 9–12.

12. The end of the proem (and the beginning of the narrative proper) is marked by a clear reminiscence of the opening line: , θεά (line 1)—, θεά (line 45).

13. Horn. il. 1.1: , θεά (‘sing of the anger, goddess’); see Vian (1976) 7.

14. See Call. Hymn. 3.186; Theoc. 22.116; the same phrase will be taken up later by Musaeus at the start of his epyllion, Hero and Leander.

15. For example, μογοστίκον (2), δισσοτίκοιο (4), , (5) and τόκον(8).

16. See Hopkinson (1994b).

17. See Vian (1976) 8f., 134; Hopkinson (1994b) 10f.

18. Egypt also features in the story told by Odysseus at Od. 14.257–91 and 17.427–39.

19. See n.14 above.

20. See Shorrock (2001) esp. 190–205.

21. Vian (1976) 135.

22. The word is found elsewhere only in Achilles Tatius (1), Nonnus (3), The Life of Aesop (1), and the Greek Anthology (2); the related ψιθυρσεόϛ, occurs in verse only in Menander, also in Plutarch, and the Church Fathers.

23. Hunter (2006) esp. 115–18.

24. Vian (1976)7.

25. Recollection of the Theocritean passage within the opening of the Dionysiaca is especially appropriate since the shepherd Thyrsis already has an association with the world of Dionysus by virtue of a punning link between his name and the thyrsus of Dionysus. See Hunter (1999) 62: ‘It is Dionysos who is evoked by Thyrsis’ name.’

26. For a recent investigation into the use of Latin in Roman Egypt see Cribiore (2007) 47–66, and cf. Introduction, pp.6f. above.

27. Virg. Ecl. 6.3–5: cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius auremluellit et admonuit: ‘pastorem, Tityre, pinguislpaseere oportet ouis, deductum dicere carmen’ (‘when I was singing about kings and battles Cynthius plucked my ear and gave me a warning: “Tityrus, it is appropriate for a shepherd to nurture fat sheep but to declaim refined poetry”’).

28. Harries (1994) 78f.

29. See Shorrock (2001) esp. 125–27.

30. It should be noted that the phrase can be translated either as ‘wet from the fire’ (following Dion. 1.4), or ‘from the wet/liquid fire’. The allusion is noted by Gigli Piccardi (2003) 118f.

31. For a now classic discussion of poetic inspiration see Murray (1981) 87–100; see also Spentzou and Fowler (2002).

32. On the topos of the rejection of the Muse see Curtius (1953) 228–46; see also Green (2006).

33. On late antique statuary in Constantinople see now Bassett (2004) esp. 66f. (tripods), 150f. (Muses); see also James (1996) 12–20; Mango (1963) 55–59.

34. On the relationship between Apollo and Augustus see, for example, Galinsky (1996) 215–19,297–99.

35. Fowler (2002) 144.

36. instinctu dignitatis: CIL VI 1139 = 1LS 694.

37. As described by Kelly (1999) 170f.

38. Weitzmann (1979).

39. See Whitmarsh (2001) 27; see now Whitmarsh (2005) 353–74. On the (not insignificant) production of poetry in this period see Bowie (1990).

40. Alan Cameron (2004) 328.

41. Alan Cameron (2004) 332; see Lightfoot (2007).

42. Cf. Kaldellis (2007) 361–83.

43. On the sculptural programme of the Baths of Zeuxippos see Bassett (2004) 51–58.

44. Paton (1916) 57.

45. 1 am particularly grateful to Richard Hunter, Katerina Carvounis, Fotini Hadjittofi and John Pen will for their helpful comments on this paper.