THE RETURN OF THE PIPERS: IN SEARCH OF NARRATIVE MODELS FOR THE AITION OF THE QVINQVATRVS MINVSCVLAE

The article argues that the famous story about the strike, exile and return of the Roman aulos players, which is recorded in the sixth book of Ovid's Fasti and referred to by other Latin and Greek sources, is based on a narrative model that already existed in Greece in the Archaic period. The study draws parallels between the tale of the pipers and the myth of the return of Hephaestus to Olympus, suggesting that, apart from similar plots, the two stories share many motifs, such as references to themes derived from comedy and satyr drama. Searching for a possible channel of transmission of the story from Archaic Greece to Augustan Rome, the study explores the presence of satyric motifs in Etruscan vase-painting and Roman processional rites. It is furthermore emphasized that many of these motifs, which also appeared in lost satyr-plays, are echoed in Augustan poetry.

Revendo a poesia no centro do mundo

Resenha de MARTINS, P; HASEGAWA, A. P.; OLIVA NETO, J. A. (orgs.) Augustan Poetry, New Trends and Revaluations. São Paulo: FFLCH-USP / Humanitas / SBEC, 2019.

The Transformation of Pride in Augustan Poetry

This chapter follows the analysis of the Aeneid with an examination of the role that pride plays in the poetry of Vergil’s contemporaries, also engaged with the changing meaning of the concept alongside the political changes. Pride, especially associated with triumph, is an indication that excess of good fortune might lead to disaster in book one of Horace’s Odes and in Augustan love poetry, where Propertius develops a way of conceptualizing such pride as justified by the beloved’s qualities and not necessarily disproportionate. The most radical version of this development takes place in the metapoetic sphere, where the first positive reconceptualization of pride takes place: Horace’s attribution of positive pride to his Muse and Propertius’s response to the claim that his fatherland, Umbria, should be proud of his achievement. The concluding part of the chapter shows the poets’ pulling away from extending this rehabilitation of pride into the public sphere.

ACROSTICS AND TELESTICHS IN AUGUSTAN POETRY: OVID'S EDGY AND SUBVERSIVE SIDESWIPES

This article considers acrotelestich wordplay in the major poets of the Augustan period, with particular reference to Ovid, and analyses its main types and characteristics. The article's final section seeks to demonstrate that Ovid invented a new category, that of political acrostics and telestichs, unique to him and uniquely suited to his own experience of Augustan terror and of the need for literary subterfuge and plausible deniability.