Strategies of Ambiguity in Ancient Literature (Issn)

Ambiguity in the sense of two or more possible meanings is considered to be a distinctive feature of modern art and literature. It characterizes the "open artwork" (Eco) and is generated by "disruptive tactics" (Wellershoff) and strategies to engender uncertainty. While ambiguity is seen as a "paradigm of modernity" (Bode), there is skepticism regarding its use in the pre-modern era. Older studies were dominated by the conviction that there was a lack of ambiguity in pre-modernity because, according to the rules of the "old rhetoric", ambiguity was seen as an avoidable error (__vitium__) and a violation of the dictate of clarity (__perspicuitas__). The aim of the volume is to re-examine the putative "absence of ambiguity" in the pre-modern era. Is it not possible to find clear examples of deliberately employed (intended) ambiguity in antiquity? Are the oracles and riddles, the Palinode of Stesichoros and Socrates (Phaedrus), the __dissoi logoi__ of rhetoric, the ambiguities of the tragedies all exceptions or do they not indicate a distinct interest in the artistic use of ambiguity? The presentations of the conference, which will include scholars from various philologies, will combine a recourse to theoretical concepts of intended ambiguity with exemplary analyses from the field of pre-modern art and literature. Preface 5 Contents 7 List of Figures 11 Part I: Concepts and Aesthetics of Ambiguity 13 Modern and Ancient Concepts of Ambiguity 13 Aristotle on Ambiguity 23 Intended Ambiguity in Plato’s Phaedo 41 The Ambiguity of the Unambiguous: Figures of Death in Late Medieval Literature 55 The Modern Perspective: Ambiguity, Artistic Self-Reference, and the Autonomy of Art 73 Part II: Playing with Linguistic Ambiguity 93 Traversing No-Man’s Land 93 The Ambiguity of Wisdom: Mētis in the Odyssey 103 Borges in Alexandria? Modes of Ambiguity in Hellenistic Poetry 113 Sympotic Sexuality: The Ambiguity of Seafood in Middle Comedy (Nausicrates fr. 1 K.-A.) 135 Liber esto – Wordplay and Ambiguity in Petronius’ Satyrica 153 Part III: Ambiguous Narratives 169 Half Heroes? Ambiguity in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 169 Underneath the Arachnean and Minervan Veil of Ambiguity: Cultural and Political Simulatio in Ovidian Ecphrasis 187 Ambigua Verba, Hidden Desire and Auctorial Intentionality in Some Ovidian Speeches (Met. 3.279−92; 7.810−23; 10.364−6, 440−1) 205 The Pleasures of Ambiguity: Aristomenes’ Tale of Socrates in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses 219 Legens. Ambiguity, Syllepsis and Allegory in Claudian’s De Raptu Proserpinae 231 Part IV: Ambiguity as Argument 249 Between Conversion and Madness: Sophisticated Ambiguity in Lucian’s Nigrinus 249 Catullan Ambiguity 263 Prophetic, Poetic and Political Ambiguity in Vergil Eclogue 4 285 Vitae aut vocis ambigua: Seneca the Younger and Ambiguity 297 Who speaks? – Ambiguity and Vagueness in the Design of Cicero’s Dialogue Speakers 309 Unsettling Effects and Disconcertment — Strategies of Enacting Interpretations in Tacitusʼ Annals 327 The Latin Commentary Tradition on ‘Inclusive’ Intended Ambiguity 343 Part V: Ambiguous Receptions 363 Ambivalent Allegories: Giovan Battista Marino’s Adone (1623) between Censorship and Hermeneutic Freedom 363 Multipliers of Ambiguity: The Use of Quotations in Cavafy’s Poems Concerning the Emperor Julian 377 Seven Perspectives of Ambiguity and the Problem of Intentionality 393 List of Contributors 417 General Index 423 Index of Passages 429