Antiquitopia

But imitation requires not only the absence of any unconquerable originality but also a relative fineness of ear which enables one first of all to discern what one is afterwards to imitate. (Proust, Guermantes Way , In Search of Lost Time ; trans. Moncrieff, Kilmartin, and Enright) Famously, since Plato and Aristotle, art has been defined as the imitation of life or nature. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses , fascinatingly, reversed the direction of imitation, saying in his portrayal of Actaeon's transformation by Diana into a stag that is torn apart by his own dogs that nature imitates art--he is speaking of the rock formations around Diana's pool that are in the form of arches--the famous Roman architectural feature. Dante, on the Ledge of Pride in his Purgatorio , similarly, depicts an ecphrasis that is so real that nature could not compete with it. Art imitates life; life imitates art; it is an endless circle of mimesis. This is a fairly creative view of mimesis; Proust, howev...

...writing a poem you can read to no one is like dancing in the dark. (Ovid, Black Sea Letters IV.2.33-4)

Inspired poets' predictions do not fail of fulfillment: a new laurel-wreath for Jove while the first's still green! These are now my words you read (I'm away on the Danube, its waters drink for the ill-pacified Goths): no, this is the voice of a god, a god's inside me, it's a god that makes me predict and prophesy! (Ovid, Black Sea Letters III.4.89-94) Ovid claims inspiration...in a very literal sense. A spirit is in him, a god's inside him. The god possesses him. Poetic inspiration and prophetic inspiration are inseparable: each divinely inspired, each folding into one another. Inspired speech is heightened speech, poetic speech. They flow from the same source: Apollo.

I've been reading Ovid's Tristia and his Black Sea Letters , and this passage struck me in the beauty of its description of Love's decrepitude: Sleep, that common repose from cares, possessed me, my slack limbs were sprawled out the length of my bed-- when, suddenly, the air was vibrant with beating pinions, and the window creaked softly open. In alarm I started up, propped on my left elbow, slumber gone, driven clear from my thumping breast. There stood Love, one hand grasping the maple bedpost, with a sad expression, not how he used to look, no neck-chain, no hair-comb, locks in wild disorder, not neatly pinned back as of old, but hanging loose around his bristled jawline, wing-feathers ruffled (or so it seemed to me) like those on the back of some homing pigeon, fingered by too many rough hands. (Ovid, Black Sea Letters III.3.7-20) His description of sleep as something that possesses rather than a state is what initially drew me into the passage, as if sleep is a spiri...

Instead of the warlord from Ithaca our educated poets should write about my misadventures: I've undergone worse troubles than he did. He wandered for years--but only on the short haul between Ithaca and Troy; thrust to the Getic shore by Caesar's wrath, I've traversed seas lying beneath unknown stars, whole constellations distant. He had his loyal companions, his faithful crew: my comrades deserted me at the time of my banishment. Hew as making for his homeland, a cheerful victor: I was driven from mine-- fugitive, exile, victim. My home was not some Greek island, Ithaca, Samos--to leave them is no great loss-- but the City that from its seven hills scans the world's orbit, Rome, centre of empire, seat of the gods. He was physically tough, with great stamina, long-enduring; my strength is slight, a gentle man's. He spent a lifetime under arms, engaged in savage warfare-- I'm accustomed to quieter pursuits. I was crushed by a god, with no help in my troub...

Ovid, famous in his own day for his Art of Love , but today for his Metamorphoses (Transformations), reflects on his Metamorphoses in his tearful Tristia (Lamentations), which were written after he was banished from Rome, exiled to the Black Sea: There are also fifteen books of Metamorphoses , worksheets lately saved from my exequies: To them I bid you say that the new face of my fortunes may now be reckoned one more among their bodily changes: by sudden transformation what was joyful once is made fit matter for tears. (Ovid, Tristia , I.1.117-22; trans. Peter Green) There is a certain painful, sad commentary here. At the end of his Metamorphoses, Ovid basically says that he (and his book--he equates them) is the only thing that will endure, not change. His exile, his separation from all his friends, from his homeland, changes him physically, psychologically, and emotionally, transforming his joy into tears. His persona in the Metamorphoses has, itself, transformed through dislocat...

John Hobbins has a nice posting on "proleptic metaphor" in Job 28. Take a look . He writes, and maybe this will be a good appetizer: Skilled authors are in fact very good at planting semes early on in a stream of discourse such that, at the appropriate time, they will, retroactively, bear metaphorical fruit.* Be sure to read the asterisk at the bottom! *It is fun, in a statement about metaphor, to use an expression like “planting semes.” I’ve run across people whose wooden view of Scripture makes them break into a sweat when they realize that the Bible contains playful etymologies which, from a linguistic point of view, are false. Sooner or later, when reading the Bible or anything else, it is necessary to “let it be,” to quote the Beatles. As Picasso said, “art is a lie which tells the truth.” The Bible is full of truth, but its authors are as faithful to their subjects as Picasso was to his. Since I am a believer, my response is: praise be to God. Or...to bring in Dante, I...

It is one of the ironies of Ovid that he gives one of the most moving love songs to the Cyclops, Polyphemus, who in previous literature is presented as rather unskilled in speech. But, being smitten by Galatea, love transforms the Cyclops from a ravening killer to an eloquent love poet. Galatea, however, does not return his love, for she loves another, Acis. Recognizing his own seemingly frightening appearance, Polyphemus says: Don't think me ugly because my body's a bristling thicket of prickly hair. A tree is ugly without any foliage; so is a horse, if a mane doesn't cover his tawny neck; birds are bedecked in plumage, and sheep are clothed in their own wool. Men look well with a beard and a carpet of hair on their chests. I've only one eye on my brow, in the middle, but that is as big as a fair-sized shield. Does it matter? The Sn looks down from the sky on the whole wide world, and he watches it all with a single eye. (Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.845-53) In the lar...

Picture a space at the heart of the world, between the earth, the sea and teh sky, on the frontiers of all three parts of the universe. Here there are eyes for whatever goes on, no matter how distant; and here there are ears whose hollows no voice can fail to penetrate. This is the kingdom of Rumour, who chose to live on a mountain, with numberless entrances into her house and a thousand additional holes, though none of her thresholds are barred with a gate or a door. Open by night and by day, constructed entirely of sounding brass, the whole place hums and echoes, repeating whatever it hears. Not one of the rooms is silent or quiet, but none is disturbed by shouting. The noise is merely a murmuring babble, low like the waves of the sea which you hear from afar, or the last faint rumble of thunder, when storm-black clouds have clashed in the sky. The hall is filled by a crowd which is constantly coming and going, a flimsy throng of a thousand rumours, true and fictitious, wandering f...