A Late Antique Poetics? : The Jeweled Style Revisited

The poetry of the late Roman world has a fascinating history. Sometimes an object of derision, sometimes an object of admiration, it has found numerous detractors and defenders among classicists and Latin literary critics. This volume explores the scholarly approaches to late Latin poetry that have developed over the last forty years, and it seeks especially to develop, complement and challenge the seminal concept of the ‘Jeweled Style’ proposed by Michael Roberts in 1989. While Roberts’s monograph has long been a vade mecum within the world of late antique literary studies, a critical reassessment of its validity as a concept is overdue. This volume invites established and emerging scholars from different research traditions to return to the influential conclusions put forward by Roberts. It asks them to examine the continued relevance of The Jeweled Style and to suggest new ways to engage it. In a joint effort, the nineteen chapters of this volume define and map the jeweled style, extending it to new genres, geographic regions, time periods and methodologies. Each contribution seeks to provide insightful analysis that integrates the last thirty years of scholarship while pursuing ambitious applications of the jeweled style within and beyond the world of late antiquity. The Latin poetry of late antiquity is at the heart of A Late Latin Poetics? The Jeweled Style Revisited, and the volume aims to develop, complement and challenge Michael Roberts’s highly influential concept of The Jeweled Style (1989). In its first part, it examines how the concept of the jeweled style applies to poetry outside the late antique Roman West including imperial poetry in Latin and Greek as well as late antique prose. Scholars in this section also clarify specific aspects of the jeweled style, for example enumeration, unity or use of the phrase before Michael Roberts’s monograph. All of these studies understand the jeweled style as a set of formal features not limited to late antique literature. In the second part, experts of late antiquity interpret the jeweled style in its late antique context, drawing connections to Christian praise, homiletics, architectural ecphrasis, epigrams and centos. Furthermore, in this section, the jeweled style is contextualised within contemporary scholarly discourses such as exegesis or Neoplatonism. Throughout the volume, scholars suggest new ways of engaging with the jeweled style. Crucial to these approaches, and to the appeal of the volume, are analyses that integrate the last thirty years of scholarship on the concept while pursuing new methodologies and applications, extending the jeweled style to new genres, geographic regions and time periods. Cover page Halftitle page Series Title page Copyright page CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS CONTRIBUTORS SERIES EDITOR PREFACE PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS NOTE ON TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS ABBREVIATIONS INTRODUCTION The formal features of the jeweled style The jeweled style and late antique aesthetics PART I THE FORMAL FEATURES OF THE JEWELED STYLE CHAPTER 1 THE DECADENT PREHISTORY OF THE JEWELED STYLE Introduction: A chain of receptions The language of jewels The orientalism of the jeweled style The aesthetics of decadence From decadence to diversity Conclusion: Towards a brighter future CHAPTER 2 THE GREEK JEWELED STYLE A Greek jeweled style in the third century? The Greek jeweled style in the fourth and fifth centuries Jeweled Christian prose and un-jeweled biblical poetry CHAPTER 3 GILDING THE LILY: THE JEWELED STYLE IN PROSE PANEGYRIC Non-metrical word patterning Catalogues Quotations and sententiae Ecphrasis Conclusion CHAPTER 4 LEARNING THE JEWELED STYLE Introduction Schools in late antiquity Classroom poetics in late antiquity Polychromatic style Variatio of vocabulary and theme Description and structure Conclusion CHAPTER 5 QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES TO LATE ANTIQUE POETICS: ENUMERATION AND CONGERIES Introduction Methods and context Methodological limitations and restrictions Interpretation of findings Conclusion CHAPTER 6 THE JEWELED STYLE AND SILVER LATIN SCHOLARSHIP Reclaiming the wood from the trees: Developments in scholarship on Silver Latin tree catalogues The danger of discouraging contextual significance The danger of overlooking the dynamics Conclusion CHAPTER 7 THE JEWELED STYLE IN EARLY MEDIEVAL LATIN POETRY Aldhelm Hisperica famina Hucbald, Egloga de calvis Conclusion CHAPTER 8 DIGRESSION, VARIETY AND UNITY IN LATE LATIN POETRY Digressions in ancient literary criticism and rhetoric Variety and unity Digressive rivers Conclusion PART II THE JEWELED STYLE AND LATE ANTIQUE AESTHETICS CHAPTER 9 METAPHOR SQUARED Arator, Epistula ad Florianum Ennodius, Carmen 1.9 Merobaudes, Carmen 4 Merobaudes, Panegyricus poeticus Metaphor squared as a literary technique Conclusion CHAPTER 10 AN ‘UNJEWELED’ CHRISTIAN STYLE? A LOOK AT AUGUSTINE’S CONFESSIONS The jeweled style as a response to late antique ‘logoclasm’ Christian objections to the jeweled style In quest of a genuinely Christian poetry Augustine’s Confessions: A new poetic paradigm? CHAPTER 11 THE CENTO AND SCRIPTURE: AN EARLY CHRISTIAN DEBATE OVER THE POETICS OF EXEGESIS Competition and caution Decoding Jerome: Ambrose as scriptural centonist The poet-preacher Ambrose De obitu Valentiniani as cento Conclusion CHAPTER 12 JEWELED SEA STORM DESCRIPTIONS IN ZENO OF VERONA (AND JUVENCUS) The genera of Latin homiletics and the jeweled style Sea storms in Zeno of Verona Sea storms in biblical poetry: the case of Juvencus Conclusion: Towards an assessment of jeweled Latin homiletics? CHAPTER 13 ALLUSIVE CLUSTERS AND BIBLICAL CONFIGURATIONS IN DRACONTIUS’ DELAUDIBUS DEI: A CHRISTIAN JEWELED STYLE? Stylistic patterns: Same techniques, new development Clusters of allusions A jeweled structure The influence of patristic and biblical texts Conclusion: A Christian jeweled style? CHAPTER 14 VERGIL’S CHILDREN: PATTERNS IN CHRISTIAN CENTOS AND RESPONSES TO VERGIL’S FOURTH ECLOGUE Cento de Ecclesia Cento de Verbi Incarnatione Conclusion CHAPTER 15 ARCHITECTURAL ECPHRASIS IN VENANTIUS FORTUNATUS: BEYOND THE JEWELED STYLE The villa and the church Restorations Light in late antique ecphrases of churches Beyond the jeweled style Conclusion CHAPTER 16 THE JEWELED STYLE IN LATE ANTIQUE LATIN EPIGRAM Introduction Tessellated epigrams: Ennodius’ jeweled bishops and Christian ecphrastic epigram Tessellation or exhaustion? Ausonian diadems, Claudian crystals and secular epigrammatic series Conclusion CHAPTER 17 THE JEWELED STYLE AND NEOPLATONISM Introduction The ‘unity’ of Macrobius’ Saturnalia The number seven in Neoplatonism An epistolary microcosmos: The letter collection of Q. Aurelius Symmachus Conclusion EPILOGUE: THE JEWELED STYLE IN CONTEXT REFERENCES INDEX RERUM INDEX NOMINUM INDEX LOCORUM "The poetry of the late Roman world has a fascinating history. Sometimes an object of derision, sometimes an object of admiration, it has found numerous detractors and defenders among classicists and Latin literary critics. This volume explores the scholarly approaches to late Latin poetry that have developed over the last 40 years, and it seeks especially to develop, complement and challenge the seminal concept of the 'Jeweled Style' proposed by Michael Roberts in 1989. While Roberts's monograph has long been a vade mecum within the world of late antique literary studies, a critical reassessment of its validity as a concept is overdue. This volume invites established and emerging scholars from different research traditions to return to the influential conclusions put forward by Roberts. It asks them to examine the continued relevance of The Jeweled Style and to suggest new ways to engage it. In a joint effort, the nineteen chapters of this volume define and map the jeweled style, extending it to new genres, geographic regions, time periods and methodologies. Each contribution seeks to provide insightful analysis that integrates the last 30 years of scholarship while pursuing ambitious applications of the jeweled style within and beyond the world of late antiquity"-- Provided by publisher