Donald Lateiner, "Mimetic Syntax: Metaphor from Word Order, Especially in
Ovid." AJPh 111 (1990) 204-237, has a thorough discussion of pictorial
placement, one that strikes a nice balance between imagination and
plausibility. His focus, obviously, is on Ovid, but he draws Vergil in as
well.
Philip Thibodeau
Brown University
>I wonder if the Mantovani would care to consider whether a phenomenon
>which one might call in Latin poetry actually exists or not.
>
>In the line " Nocte volat caeli medio terraeque per umbram"(�neid
>iv.184) we have a description of Fama flying through the night, halfway
>between heaven & earth. When I first read this as a undergraduate, it
>struck me that there was a pictorial component in the word order.
>"Nocte" & "umbram" enclose the line, or,one could almost say, envelope
>it in darkness. The word "medio" itself is literally in the middle of
>the line with three words on either side of it; and is also placed
>midway between the words"heaven"("caeli") & "earth"("terraeque")!
>
>I was heartened to find a similar observations made about other lines by
>Virgil and Horace in the website of a English Latin mistress (see
>WEBSITE Pyrrha's Roman Pages http://www.pyrrha.demon.co.uk).
>
>Is there any merit in this observation or is it a mare's nest like the
>numerical fantasies of G.E.Duckworth.
>
>PeterJVD Bryant
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