The Dynamics of Paratextuality in Late Antique Literature

Stumbling Texts

Christian Guerra, Markus Kersten, Ann-Kathrin Stähle

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781350434899
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: Literature

Through an examination of paratextuality in late antique literature, this collection of essays reconsiders the importance of the written material that appears in the margins of ancient poetic texts. Paratexts such as headings, prefaces, letters et al. have largely been skimmed over or completely disregarded in favour of the main ancient work. However, there is now a new wave of scholarship that takes into consideration the reading of books in line with the different 'margins', or 'frames', and the structures (de-)constructed by them. A salient feature of late antique poetry is the presence of the paratextual. For example, the prefaces of Ausonius, Claudian, Avianus, Sidonius Apollinaris, and Venantius Fortunatus are studied in their own right by the contributors, who present new understandings and interpretations of the aims of these late antique writers. In keeping with its subject matter, this volume presents a multitude of approaches intended not only to look at, but rather to read and take seriously the paratextual material. The result is a reframing of our appreciation of the marginal matter, which has up until this point been overlooked.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Series Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• A Paratext
• Stumbling at the Threshold: Late Antique Paratexts between Discursive Enrichment and Interpretive Challenge
• The Framework of a Tradition: Paratexts from Ausonius to Sidonius
• 1 Everyone’s a Critic: Ausonius on His Coterie and Its Etiquette
• 2 Ausonius’ Commentary on His Own Work
• 3 Legere or Tegere? Reflections on a Key Question for the Late Antique Author and His Readers
• 4 Poetics of Conclusion in Sidonius’ Letters (Books 7–9, Epist. 9, 12-16)
• Core Issues: Repetition, Revision, and Collection
• 5 Rewriting Rewriting: Eudocia on Revision in the Preface to Her Homeric Cento
• 6 Quoting Quotations: Multilayer Intertextuality in Claudian’s Panegyrics
• 7 The Disparaging Assessments, “Awkward” Intertextuality, and Serious Ambition of the Fables of Avianus
• 8 Claudian’s Carmina Minora: A Collection of Short Pieces by a Stumbling Poet?
• The Tradition of Framework: Paratexts in Venantius Fortunatus and Beyond
• 9 Venantius Fortunatus’ Uecors Otium in His Letter to Bishop Syagrius (Carm. 5.6)
• 10 De Modicis Minimus: Venantius Fortunatus and the Value of His Life of Saint Martin
• 11 From Trope to Code: The Politics of Rusticity in Late Antique Hagiographic Paratexts
• 12 Late Antique Paratextual Habits in the Early Modern Period
• Bibliography
• Index Nominum
• Index Locorum
• Index Rerum
• Copyright