trying to define myself as a Latin Literature person in general at this stage is actually more difficult than it looks when the thesis and article are both on prose works. Hi, you just described me.
I agree that Hinds selection of examples is hardly comprehensive; as far as I'm concerned, though, there is little difficulty in moving from poetry to prose in his, or Edmunds, terms. Certain types of prose works, like poetry, are more densely allusive, of course, and those are the types of prose works that happen to be the works I focus on.
Part of the disconnect between poetry and prose among modern Latinists may have something to do with the legacy of new criticism and its fascination with the poem as microcosm. It is much harder to read Latin prose works as a microcosm. Allusion and intertextuality, however, should help as it attacks the idea of poem as microcosm and brings it close to prose as a literary system.
Hopefully, in the next decade we Latin literature people can remake the map.
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Date: 2010-02-21 02:59 am (UTC)I agree that Hinds selection of examples is hardly comprehensive; as far as I'm concerned, though, there is little difficulty in moving from poetry to prose in his, or Edmunds, terms. Certain types of prose works, like poetry, are more densely allusive, of course, and those are the types of prose works that happen to be the works I focus on.
Part of the disconnect between poetry and prose among modern Latinists may have something to do with the legacy of new criticism and its fascination with the poem as microcosm. It is much harder to read Latin prose works as a microcosm. Allusion and intertextuality, however, should help as it attacks the idea of poem as microcosm and brings it close to prose as a literary system.
Hopefully, in the next decade we Latin literature people can remake the map.