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Feb. 19th, 2010 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyAllusion and intertext: Dynamics of appropriation in Roman poetry - Stephen Hinds
I seem to be doing nothing but read the Roman Literature and its contexts books at the moment, for lo, this is another one. And I have to say that I honestly think most of this just went by me at high speed because my brain isn't in poetry mode at the moment. Hinds' main theme is how the reception of texts is always changed by both the moment of reception and the culture of the receiver, so no reception is ever the same. He does some very nice stuff about how to take intertextual references further than just 'oh, look, this passage looks a bit like that other passage, that's interesting' - for instance, he points out that Ennius wasn't always an archaic poet. Other poets had to create his archaic status. He also gives some good consideration to the question of deliberate degradation created by the so-called Silver Age poets, who are always talking about how degenerate their own work is - and have been rather unquestioningly believed, which is a bit of a pain and deserves further examination. (Although just because someone says he's a crap poet doesn't mean he isn't, of course.)
There's also a really brilliant bit about Hector and Andromache as sex symbols in the interplay between Ovid and Martial, and I swear, I was sitting there going 'hang on a mo, this is just like my Priapea paper except... hang on, since when did Homer become this sexy?' So that's another research project for another day.
But anyway. This book gives some very clever, very clearly written ways of thinking about allusion and intertexuality that get beyond dry analysis of 'passage X is modelled on passage Y', and thank goodness for that. I have to say that I am wondering now about genre, as Hinds deliberately only looks at poetry and not particularly at prose, and I think a lot of the points went by me as I am elbow-deep in Latin prose at the moment. It's definitely one to come back to, and one that is worth picking up - and, I'm going to put my neck out, a lot of the content is rather applicable to the reception theory question, and I am wondering whether I might at some stage try and do something with that. But again, another project for another day.
I seem to be doing nothing but read the Roman Literature and its contexts books at the moment, for lo, this is another one. And I have to say that I honestly think most of this just went by me at high speed because my brain isn't in poetry mode at the moment. Hinds' main theme is how the reception of texts is always changed by both the moment of reception and the culture of the receiver, so no reception is ever the same. He does some very nice stuff about how to take intertextual references further than just 'oh, look, this passage looks a bit like that other passage, that's interesting' - for instance, he points out that Ennius wasn't always an archaic poet. Other poets had to create his archaic status. He also gives some good consideration to the question of deliberate degradation created by the so-called Silver Age poets, who are always talking about how degenerate their own work is - and have been rather unquestioningly believed, which is a bit of a pain and deserves further examination. (Although just because someone says he's a crap poet doesn't mean he isn't, of course.)
There's also a really brilliant bit about Hector and Andromache as sex symbols in the interplay between Ovid and Martial, and I swear, I was sitting there going 'hang on a mo, this is just like my Priapea paper except... hang on, since when did Homer become this sexy?' So that's another research project for another day.
But anyway. This book gives some very clever, very clearly written ways of thinking about allusion and intertexuality that get beyond dry analysis of 'passage X is modelled on passage Y', and thank goodness for that. I have to say that I am wondering now about genre, as Hinds deliberately only looks at poetry and not particularly at prose, and I think a lot of the points went by me as I am elbow-deep in Latin prose at the moment. It's definitely one to come back to, and one that is worth picking up - and, I'm going to put my neck out, a lot of the content is rather applicable to the reception theory question, and I am wondering whether I might at some stage try and do something with that. But again, another project for another day.
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Date: 2010-02-22 01:56 am (UTC)We've got an awful lot of friends in common, and I know more than once you've posted comments on people's entries, and my responses have been *mirrors your feelings* So I thought it would be about time I got to know you myself. Obviously only if you were ok with mutual friending :)
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Date: 2010-02-22 01:53 pm (UTC)That said - for a number of reasons, most of which are to do with living in a different continent to most of my friends-group, I tend only to add people I have met in RL these days. So please don't be offended if I don't friend back, but feel free to follow along with the public kit if it looks like it might interest you - there is a lot of Doctor Who in the mix at the moment...