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Chapter 3 - Brief Encounters
Christopher Whitton, University of Cambridge
Book:

The Arts of Imitation in Latin Prose

Published online:

10 June 2019

Print publication:

27 June 2019, pp 69-107
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Summary

Chapter 3 begins an inductive argument for establishing Quintilian’s presence in the Epistles and establishes a method for reading it. It considers ten brief liaisons in which Pliny culls an epigram, metaphor or other distinctive detail from the Institutio. I argue that these similarities show imitation, not accident, and situate them within an imitative culture where declaimers, poets and prose writers routinely borrowed and improved on each others’ sententiae. These encounters are routinely self-conscious, but not necessarily (I argue) systematic or invested in allusively taking position against Quintilian: their function is also, and importantly, aesthetic. Lexical signatures play a part, but a much more discreet one than usually supposed – suggesting that we might all do well to spend less time with concordances and word searches and more time reading for the idea.