As its title implies, this volume presents a literary reading of De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, in which Julieta Cardigni argues that, in spite of the traditional regard for Martianus’ creation as a didactic work, it is, in fact, a parody (22).
Taking literary genre as her interpretive key, the author dismisses the idea that the disciplinary expositions of the liberal arts serve a didactic purpose. Conversely, early in her work, we find an intuition – formulatesd as a question – that this extravagant wedding gift is a literary device upon which lies a structure that is “antididactic” in nature (16). A priori, Julieta Cardigni advocates on behalf of her insight based on the terminology that Martianus uses to qualify his own work, by framing mythos and technical knowledge within the fabula and understanding fabula as a statement of literary genre (76); on other hand, she raises some questions concerning the term egérsimon, used by Martianus as revelation, but one linked to a wedding that never really takes place within the bounds of the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii.
Guided by these speculative and conceptual coordinates, the author objects to the traditional reading of the work (one that historically has faced difficulties in explaining the first two books of De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii), arguing in favor of its parodic organicity. Thus, it “mocks and destabilizes the topics and precepts of didactic encyclopedism in particular and, in more general terms, of all literary discourses” (21; all translations from the book are the reviewer’s). The hypothesis is based on the assumption that Martianus’ work subscribes to the Third Sophistic and to its “poetics of silence”, in other words, to its distinctive doubt about speech as means by which to achieve true knowledge. This skepticism, Julieta Cardigni argues, is the operative core around which Martianus arranges his work, whose main theme, therefore, is “the inconsequential nature of verbal expression”. (23) The argumentative structure of this analysis rests upon the Systemic-Functional Linguistic methodology, exploring lexical and grammatical relationships and the distribution of semantic fields, particularly those linked to silence and speech throughout Martianus’ work, in terms consistent with the unifying perspective intended by the author in the Introduction, as an alternative to the traditional one, which is inclined to divorce the first two books of te De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii from the later, so-called disciplinary ones.
After describing her objective and methodology, Julieta Cardigni offers a synthesis of the critical approaches to Martianus’ creation, considering the most recent editions and bibliography, but going back to the bizarre situation of his work in the medieval libraries.[1] The survey triggers a commentary on the main problems that any study of the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii encounters. Among these, some are inveterate, as the research reveals, such as the perplexing character of the text and its linguistic obscurity, while others have been addressed only recently by critique, such as the prevailing tendency to consider the first books independently from the disciplinary accounts given by the liberal arts. Finally, Julieta Cardigni anticipates her intuitions, proposing a literary and organic reading of Martianus’ work, like a Menippean satire, to the detriment of the traditional interpretation of it like an encyclopedia (even if unorthodox in nature). In doing so, she ponders on the concerns of researchers such as Relihan (1987), who stresses the didactic character of the text — even acknowledging its parodic undertones — pointing out that the “systematization of disciplinary knowledge” does not necessarily establish a didactic function, “if its social purpose is not to teach” (27). Considering literary genre as functional category, the author argues that the critical agenda of the Menippean satire is inevitably harmful to any didactic intention and, therefore, as the parody is not only a device but a compositional key, “the antididacticism of De nuptiis becomes obvious” (65).
In the first chapter (“Las bodas de Marciano y la Filología: historia de un malentendido”), Julieta Cardigni contextualizes Martianus’ work by pointing out the possible sources that could have inspired it and describing the encyclopedism which flourished in late antiquity and from which the writer borrowed some formal features to mask his parody. The second chapter (“De nuptiis y la parodia absoluta”: De nuptiis and the absolute parody) the author carries out textual analyses of prologues, epilogues, and the apostrophes of Satira in book 8, to show the heterogeneousness of tones, on the one hand, but also, to prove the parodic condition of the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii on the other.
In the third chapter (“Del saber como discurso o cómo arruinar un banquete de bodas”) the author disputes the didactic purpose of the wedding gifts, showing how any didactic intent they may seem to have is necessarily threatened by the treatment that Martianus gives to the exposition of the liberal arts and its parodic parentheses. Following the order originally given to the maids, Julieta Cardigni focuses her attention first on the trivium and then the quadrivium, arguing that under an allegorical- didactic guise, their lectures are encumbered by satirical notes that illuminate the state of the liberal arts in late antique schooling. Her linguistic analysis reveals a pervasive contrast between the speeches given by Philology maids — pierced by negative undertones – and the wedding itself, which is privileged by positive semes of unity and pleasure.
Julieta Cardigni turns to speculative grounds in the last two chapters of her book. The fourth one (“La textualización del silencio en De nuptiis”), is wholly dedicated to the problem of silence in Martianus, surveying the instances when it hints at real – however inexpressible and inexpressed — knowledge, in opposition to the disruptive noise and speeches that have so far been the centerpiece of the social gathering imagined by Martianus: the false sky and the true sky, for example, identified with the lectures of the liberal arts and the absence of speech, respectively. Finally, in the fifth and last chapter (“Discurso después del silencio”), the author recalls the place of silence in late-ancient aesthetics and thought, previously mentioned in the Introduction, as well as the skepticism towards speech as a means for reaching the truth. In essence, the assumption of a “poetics of silence” underpins the argumentative gymnastics, allowing the author to draw the conclusions that crown her work. And so, textual analysis shows that there is an impossible distance between word and true knowledge, from where “the exhibition of Armonía leads us towards what I consider to be the main theme of the work: the limitations of speech” (129). Her speculative journey concludes that speech is an impediment for the wedding and, thus, the marriage of Mercury and his bride can take place only within a framework of silence and outside the limits of the text. Returning to the formal configuration of the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, Julieta Cardigni points out that Martianus masks defiant Menippean satire under the guise of a didactic allegory “whose social purpose is not to teach, but rather to decry the essential futility of all discursive knowledge” (159).
Although it is not a cruel nor an unfair experience, to read this book may be challenging, particularly to readers such as me, who are less familiar with Martianus’ work or the massive theoretical bibliography used by its author. I will allow myself, however, to dwell on some statements relative to the strange fascination for Martianus felt by the medieval world. Julieta Cardigni addresses this considering that “these [disciplinary] expositions were undoubtedly very much appreciated given the scarcity of sources,” whereas the texts used by Martianus to compose the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii were still available in late antiquity (19). She goes even further, wondering how such a work served as “the basis of medieval education and culture” (47). Both statements are problematic, coalescing a very disputable “shortage of sources” and the presumed didactic perception of Martianus. However, as Sinéad O’ Sullivan points out, Martianus’ popularity, proven by the sheer number of glosses he inspired, is particularly true of the first two books “whose lengthy allegorical fantasy appears frequently to have received the most concentrated attention from Carolingian scribes.”[2] In other words, it is not the technical expositions delivered by the maids that stimulated his medieval readers. Furthermore, these were probably not representative of the school population either, given the complexities of the text: “research to date has shown that Martianus Capella’s late antique work, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, was an important text for the Carolingian scholarly elite.”[3] Perhaps because the disciplinary exposition that follows the first books found more solid foundations and less obscure linguistic expression in other sources — also present in medieval catalogs — these — and not Martianus work — were better suited to serve as a “basis for the education and medieval culture.” In any case, because the author tries to show that the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii is a parody — regardless of the value given to it by its audience — the statement does not compromise Julieta Cardigni’s work: the technical condition of the work or the availability of the sources is irrelevant.
De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii o la farsa del discurso: Una lectura literaria de Marciano Capela is interesting and its conclusions follow rigorously from its premises. The prose is clear and flows without problems, aided by a neat body of textual notes. Nevertheless, on more than one occasion, I felt that I was not the “model reader” required by Julieta Cardigni: the sequence of ideas is not always kind to an audience that is less than fully immersed in the subject and, although the chapters structure the contents, the segmentation turns them at times into watertight compartments. A more intensive debate will need to take place among more experts regarding the premises on which the argument is built. Obviously, I cannot hold the researcher accountable for my own shortcomings (her credentials on the subject matter are beyond doubt), but the preceding remark may help to explain why Julieta Cardigni’s book does not easily accommodate just any reader. Her work may demand many more readings or a large dose of good will.
Notes
[1] Although De Nuptiis was known to the medieval world, it remained in the shadows until the ninth century, when it began to be copied and glossed almost to a fault – not all of it, however, and the massive body of comentaries on its first two books that were on the shelves by the thirteeenth century hints to the reason why Martianus was read. As O’ Sullivan points out, alongside the Somnum Scipionis, it was a “treasure house of obscurity” that medieval scholars used to entertain their exegetical anxieties: S. O’Sullivan, “Obscurity, Pagan Lore, and Secrecy in Glosses on Books I–II from the Oldest Gloss Tradition,” in Mariken Teeuwen and Sinead O’Sullivan, eds., Carolingian Scholarship and Martianus Capella (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011) p. 120.
[2] O’Sullivan, op. cit. p. 107.
[3] Idem; p. 99.