| Paper 505-c | Truci subridens ulcera vultu: Patientia versus Ira, or the Saint's Impassibility
(Language: English)
Paola Franchi, Dipartimento di Studi Letterari, Università degli Studi di Trento / Institut für Klassische Philologie, Mittel- und Neulatein, Universität Wien
Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
The panegyrical poetry of the 4th-century poet Claudian is memorable for its vivid visual descriptions, not least in terms of the aesthetics of wealth. The passages in question are significant not only as descriptions but in how they act as symbols for the characterizations of the laudandi of the poems; however, they seem to be problematized by depictions of the general Stilicho as a hero whose concerns are far removed from his enemies' desire for wealth and gain. Thirdly, the theme of gold recurs in the poems as a symbol relating to paradise and the golden age. The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of symbols relating to wealth and adornment in the poems, and then to consider how the motif of gold is both used to epitomize the great age and paradise Rome is entering and simultaneously can act as a negative desire when used in terms of lust for material gain.
Paper -b:
This paper aims to show that the replacement of the Muses in Christian epic invocations is accompanied by a new conception of the time-frame in which the epic poem places itself. In Juvencus, the poem will not grant long-lasting fame, but eternal life after the end of time; in Sedulius, God, the inspirer, is also the creator of time. These innovations suggest that temporality was still perceived as one of the most prominent attributes of the Muses.
Paper -c:
This paper will discuss the third duel of Prudentius' Psychomachia (Patientia versus Ira) as an excellent example of the complex literary technique, based upon the mixture and reciprocal reaction of different models and traditions, which is typical of the Late Antiquity and especially refined in this author. The two allegorical figures, their appereance, actions and speeches in fact are built on the one hand as a combination of images and metaphors from Seneca's De Ira and De constantia sapientis (what until now has been only partly noticed), on the other hand as a continuous quotation from Virgil, other epic authors and more in general from well-known scenes of the heroic mythology (the most important one, which also has not yet been noticed, is Aiax' suicide). The third fundamental ingredient is nevertheless the Christian literature, which is present through Tertullian's De Patientia and the biblic exemplum of Job, and more indirectly through the many similarities with Prudentius' poems about the martyrs (Peristephanon): it works as a link between the other models and simoultaneously contrasts with them. The whole episode becomes so a praise of the ideal of the miles christi, which is at the same time a religious transposition of the stoic ideal of apatheia and an attack to the traditional model of hero proposed by the classical epic.
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