Leofranc Holford-Strevens responds to Philip Thibodeau (very nice post!) with some more interesting points:
>But why can't the patrons ever be sophisticated enough to appreciate it >[i.e. surprisingly unpanegyrical panegyric], >and to see that it did them more good than the uninspired panegyric? Sure. And patrons, esp. those as fiercely intelligent as Augustus, are sometimes smart enough to appreciate poetry that contains criticism (both constructive and not), equivocation, ambivalence, and doubt. [...] >> Vergil's and Horace's panegyrics can have the same >>over-the-top character (cf. the prologue to the first Georgic and H's >>Cleopatra Ode.) > >Is the Cleopatra ode over the top? Not nearly as much as Ode 1.2; but it >is significant that these poems, like the Georgic prologue, seem to be >from early in the reign. Perhaps Augustus dropped a hint that he would >rather not be assassinated by people thinking he wanted to be a >Hellenistic god-king, thank you very much. This "perhaps" offers a not-impossible scenario, but we must beware the pernicious ease with which these kinds of musings about Augustus' relationship with Vergil or Horace have become dogma that is then used in a most circular fashion to read specific Augustan influence on this or that passage or poem. Watch for Richard Thomas' forthcoming book on the history of Vergilians scholarship for some great examples of this. >Hasn't Ovid recently been represented as an ultra-loyalist whose loyalty >was not appreciated? Sure: first by Ovid himself, then more recently by some scholars not too comfortable with anything but the surface of a poem. Anyone who could read Met. 1 and 15 and think of O. as an ultra-loyalist has a very different set of equipment between the ears than I do. If "Perhaps Augustus dropped a hint that he would rather not be assassinated by people thinking he wanted to be a Hellenistic god-king, thank you very much", Ovid clearly was not cc'ed on that memo. Great stuff on (I know I'm going to summarize this poorly) the fine line Ovid walks in terms of criticism of Augustus, and dramatization within the Met of the dangers of disbelief or resistance, in an important study of O's Met by Stephen Wheeler, forthcoming from UPenn press. Jim O'Hara James J. O'Hara Professor of Classical Studies & Chair Classical Studies Dept. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wesleyan University 860/685-2066 (fax: 2089) Middletown CT 06459-0146 Home Page: http://www.wesleyan.edu/classics/faculty/jim.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
