Not something the writers on exemplarity are big on. True, and for that matter, Hinds' observation about the backward effect of allusion is not something poetry people are particularly big on. It is hard to know what to do with the observation, even if it is true; in addition, historicist principles require readers to 'bracket,' ut ita dicam, knowledge of later material.
It is undeniable, however, that a subsequent use can color anyone reading of the earlier material. Seneca's use of Maecenas, for example, would be hard to forget if we then had Maecenas's poetry to evaluate.
I would suggest, then, that the question of allusion so framed is not one of degree of metricality (verse is more regular than prose), but of what the interpreter wants to do with the work. After all, exemplarity is a feature of Latin poetry as well as prose.
I'm starting to ride my hobby-horse; apologies are called for. I feel that the study of Latin has suffers under too rigid and (in my view) misguided division between prose and verse.
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Date: 2010-02-21 12:27 am (UTC)It is undeniable, however, that a subsequent use can color anyone reading of the earlier material. Seneca's use of Maecenas, for example, would be hard to forget if we then had Maecenas's poetry to evaluate.
I would suggest, then, that the question of allusion so framed is not one of degree of metricality (verse is more regular than prose), but of what the interpreter wants to do with the work. After all, exemplarity is a feature of Latin poetry as well as prose.
I'm starting to ride my hobby-horse; apologies are called for. I feel that the study of Latin has suffers under too rigid and (in my view) misguided division between prose and verse.