The Poetry of Pathos: Studies in Virgilian Epic

259 Pages·2007·1.09 MB·English

by  Gian Biagio Conte

THE POETRY OF PATHOS
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The Poetry of
Pathos
Studies in Virgilian Epic
GIAN BIAGIO CONTE
Editedby
S. J. HARRISON
1
3
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Editor’s Preface
InassistingwiththepublicationinEnglishofanexpandedversionof
Gian Biagio Conte’s latest Italian book, it is an especial pleasure for
me to present the writings of a scholar whom I particularly admire.
His practical help has of course beenvital in producing the current
volume, and I would like to thank him for that and for his many
otherkindnesses.
The real work of the English translation was done by Elaine
Fantham(Chapters2and5–8)andGlennMost(Chapters3,4,and
9); my interventions have been restricted to editorial tidying, and
these distinguished scholars deserve the full credit for these render-
ings. I am especially grateful to Elaine Fantham for supplying her
version of Chapter 7 for the purposes of this book with impressive
celerity, and for kindly providing footnotes for that chapter, and to
Glenn Most for generous help with checking the Wnal text of the
volume.MythankstootoDanielJohnsonfortimelyhelpinprodu-
cing the text of Chapter 9. The anonymous referees for Oxford
UniversityPressshouldalsobethankedforsomeusefulandsalutary
comments.
This volume translates the contents of Virgilio: L’epica del senti-
mento (Turin, 2002), with the addition of Chapters 1 and 5, both
published here for the Wrst time, and Chapters 7 and 9, both previ-
ously published in Italian in G. B. Conte, Virgilio: il genere e i suoi
conWni (2nd edition; Milan, 1984). An earlier English version of
Chapter 2 appeared in Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological
Society, 45 (1999), 17–42, one of Chapter 4 in S. Spence (ed.), Poets
and Critics Read Virgil (New Haven, 2001), 44–63, and one of
Chapter9inBeginningsinClassicalLiterature(YaleClassicalStudies,
29;1992),147–59.
S.J.H.
CorpusChristiCollege,Oxford
November2005
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Contents
1. IntroductionbyStephenHarrison 1
2. TheVirgilianParadox:AnEpic
ofDramaandPathos 23
3. AnatomyofaStyle:Enallageandthe
NewSublime 58
4. Aristaeus,Orpheus,andtheGeorgics:
onceagain 123
5. TheStrategyofContradiction:Onthe
DramaticFormoftheAeneid 150
6. DefensorVergilii:RichardHeinzeon
Virgil’sEpicTechnique 170
7. TowardsaNewExegesisofVirgil:
ReconsiderationsandProposals 184
8. TheMeetingofStylisticsandTextualCriticism 212
9. ProemsintheMiddle 219
Bibliography 232
Indexlocorum 244
GeneralIndex 249
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1
Introduction by Stephen Harrison
Gian Biagio Conte has been an internationally acknowledged
leading scholar of Roman poetry and prose for several decades. He
has playeda major partin thestudyof Latin literature in both Italy
and the Anglophone world, primarily through his own inXuential
writings, but also through his foundation in 1978 of the important
journal Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici,1 through
thestringofdistinguishedscholarswhohavebeentaughtbyhimat
Pisa,andthroughhisextensivepersonalcontactswithotherLatinists
in Italy, the UK, and the USA. In the introduction to this volume, I
will try Wrst to describe this new collection of papers on Virgil, and
then to characterize Conte’s scholarly output as a whole and its
developmentovertheyears.2
1. VIRGIL: THE EPIC OF PATHOS
In much of the collection which this volume largely translates, Wrst
publishedinItalianin2002andcontaining piecesmostlywrittenin
the 1990s, Conte makes a crucial argument: that the exceptional
status of the Aeneid in Latin literature derives from its remarkably
complexandambiguouspoetictexture.Heespeciallyemphasizesthe
1 Not forgetting its series of monograph supplements, in which several im-
portant works by Conte pupils have been published, e.g. Barchiesi (1984),
Labate (1984), Bonfanti (1985), and fourteen further volumes: for details see
http://www.libraweb.net/riviste.php?chiave¼17 (accessed 8.6.2004).
2 ExcellentaccountsofConte’sworkcanalsobefoundinthetwointroductionsby
CharlesSegaltoitsmajorEnglishtranslations(Conte1986a,Conte1994b).