Options
Una tendenziosa lezione di storia letteraria (su esegesi e testo di Marziale, VIII 73)
Fusi, Alessandro
2016
Loading...
e-ISSN
2464-8760
Abstract
In the first section of the paper is analysed Mart. VIII 73, where the poet, answering to his patron’s request for elevated poetry, asks in turn “something to love” (v. 4 da quod amem). The catalogue of love-poets inspired by the object of their passion (Propertius, Gallus, Tibullus, Catullus) is functional to the thesis that the beloved person makes great poets and prepares the ground for the conclusion, in which Martial declares that his poetry will be at the same height of Ovid’s and Virgil’s, if only he have a Corinna or an Alexis. The acceptance of the biographic-allegorical tradition which treated the Alexis of Virgil’second eclogue as a real puer, gift of a patron, reveals the goal of the playful literary history’s lesson proposed by the poet: Martial covertly suggests to his patron that the gift of a beautiful boy will make him an epic poet, as shows the analogy with VIII 55(56), where Maecenas’ gift of Alexis immediately inspires the Aeneid to Virgil. It is likely that the request is pointed to Cestus, minister of his patron, already mentioned in VIII 46 and 50(51). Discussed are then some critical loci of the epigram and given elements which support second family’s variants, generally discarded by editors (vv. 1 Instani; 3 animumque; 5 lasciva).
Series
Incontri di Filologia Classica
14
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Alessandro Fusi, "Una tendenziosa lezione di storia letteraria (su esegesi e testo di Marziale, VIII 73)”, in: Incontri di Filologia Classica, XIV (2014-2015), EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2016, pp. 59-89
Languages
it
•
la
File(s)