[Author and titles are listed at the end of the review.]
Bardo Gauly and Alexander Arweiler organized a conference on late antique Latin literature in Eichstätt in 2021 and present here a commendable volume of chapters mostly based on those presentations. The focus was on literary language, via linguistic research that encompassed textual study, functional linguistics, stylistics, and other traditional methods. This research is timely and desirable because those who study later Latin literature frequently find that standard references works mention their texts only in passing or as exceptions – studies of individual authors and texts are usually wanting. In these circumstances, a set of case studies focused on individual topics represents an important and productive step forward, as suggested by Gauly in his introduction (15). The following are, as expected, cited frequently in this book: James Adams’s groundbreaking monographs published in the 2000s, which were the fruit of a lifetime’s labor, especially The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 BC – AD 600 (2007) and Social Variation and the Latin Language (2013); Harm Pinkster’s monumental two-volume Oxford Latin Syntax (2015–2021); and the incomparable treasure-house that is the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (1900–).
In his introduction, Gauly sets the scene for this book by observing the key importance of classical models amid the broader transformations of Late Antiquity, by setting out the idea that literary Latin was differentiated from the spoken language in a form of diglossia, and by noting the influence of the linguistic form in which the Christian scriptures were translated. He also provides a helpful survey of the following chapters.
Gerd Haverling’s chapter on literary language and the development of Latin in Late Antiquity begins with a discussion of two key authors, Symmachus and Gregory of Tours: the former was conservative and studious of ancient usage, but not without allowing for development; the latter professed that he wrote in a rustic style and without deference to grammatical norms, although the non-standard aspects of his Latinity were probably amplified and exaggerated by Merovingian scribes. The chapter then outlines changes in colloquial but not literary language, changes in the literary language, and changes that were common to both registers. Several features of late Latin are described as hypercorrections, which is a regular way to describe deviations from the norm but which could also be described as developments via analogy. Wolfgang Melo’s chapter on Varro observes that this antiquarian’s work on language, De lingua Latina, had vanishingly little influence on grammarians or other authors in Late Antiquity (the influence of Varro’s other writings, including his Antiquitates and Saturae Menippeae, is outside the scope of this chapter). Sara Fascione’s chapter tracks the few but telling neologisms in Symmachus’ writings. Along with his tag sensuum novitas, verborum vetustas (Epist. 1.53.2; ‘newness in interpretations, antiquity in words’), those neologisms demonstrate that Symmachus did not oppose linguistic change as such. Josine Schrickx compares the use of the following particles in the letters of Cicero, Pliny the Younger, and Symmachus: enim, nam, nempe, quippe, ergo, igitur, at, and autem (discourse markers); and scilicet, videlicet, and vero (commitment markers). The chapter is full of stimulating observations, with the conclusion that Symmachus was very classical in his usage of particles.
The chapter by Fabio Stok on the Latin of the commentators is devoted to Servius and Servius auctus (= Servius Danielis), and it takes the form of paragraphs on a fascinating set of expressions found in those commentaries, with observations on the differences between them. For example, Stok notes (108) that Servius uses the present tense dicit and the perfect dixit with an important difference: the present draws attention to the text as read in the classroom, whereas the perfect tense focalizes the author’s activity, with the example of laudatory adverbs appended (bene dixit, figurate dixit, poetice dixit). Stok’s conclusion, amply demonstrated, is that the genre of the commentary evinces particular and definable traits.
Jan Stenger’s chapter takes up the frequent habit of Christian writers to quote and/or paraphrase multiple passages of scripture out of context and to serve their own expressive purposes via a striking form of figural interpretation. Jerome, Paulinus of Nola, and many other Christian authors frequently write paragraphs with echoes of a dozen or more phrases from scripture, in a performance that seems to ventriloquize the sacred text. Stenger describes these as a pastiche or mosaic or spolia and as a form of imitation and intertextuality. He observes (134) the importance of the writings of Clement of Alexandria as an early Christian forerunner of this trend, but unfortunately does not discuss other key authors and texts, for example Philo of Alexandria, the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, anonymous Christian texts such as the Didache, and the imitative practices of a Seneca the Younger of Pliny the Younger.
Another set of chapters are focused on particular authors or issues. The conclusion of Friedrich Heberlein’s chapter on indirect speech expressed in Macrobius with quia or quod rather than with an accusative and infinitive is that he used the new expressions for the sake of variatio and not to denote his degree of commitment to the statement expressed. The chapter includes useful tables and insightful discussion of numerous passages. Paola Moretti’s chapter on orality in Augustine begins from that author’s key distinction between the outer form of an expression (vox) and an inner meaning (verbum) present in the mind and common to multiple idioms. That distinction goes back to Origen. The rest of the chapter presents several texts on a spectrum, with oral on one end and literary on the other. Useful charts and figures demonstrate that the most literary text (De trinitate) uses a greater variety of lexemes and longer, more complex sentences. Étienne Wolff’s chapter sketches the captivating, contradictory, and compelling features of Ausonius’ style of writing, which is often inseparable from his material.
Bardo Gauly’s chapter on the representation of the holy in the Peristephanon of Prudentius shows convincingly that this Christian poet represents the past through the viewpoint of an eschatological future that is expressed in the present tense. Just as God is without time (209; ‘zeitlos’), the victories of the martyrs are described in a timeless present that involves the reader in the text. Old Testament stories are presented as figures that break down temporal distinctions between the past, present, and future.
Gauly also notes (220) that Prudentius uses the verb praemicare in Peristephanon 1.84 in a temporal usage that the TLL marks as peculiar to him and that echoes the poet’s other uses of the simplex form of that verb in reference to souls ascending to God. Gauly notes the importance of faith for Prudentius a few times, but one might make more of belief as the engine that allows an individual to make the past and the future both present in the Peristephanon poems. Another chapter focused on a poetic text is that of Michael Roberts on Avitus of Vienne’s De spiritalis historiae gestis, with a preliminary observation that the title of the poem conveys more than one might at first expect: it is a poem on the epic deeds of a history interpreted in a spiritual (allegorical) manner. Roberts discusses aspects of narrative continuity and the author’s handling of digressions and use of enumeration and parataxis, with productive use of Eduard Norden’s appendix on parataxis in Vergil, from his commentary on Aeneid 6. In a section on ‘Lexical Choice’ (232–5) Roberts importantly notes that Avitus utilizes polysemous words, with both a literal and a spiritual meaning, to blend narration and exegesis; for example, vita (SHG 4.293 and 403) meaning both an individual human life and eternal life or ab undis meaning both ‘by waters’ and ‘from waters’ (SHG 4.325). These are just brief examples of the many learned observations on texts and authors that characterize this book.
The final chapter, by Bernhard Teuber on Latin hagiography and Romance versions of them, takes its chronological focus down to the thirteenth century and the poem on St Martin composed by Péan Gatineau, a cleric in Tours. The chapter begins with wide-ranging observations on fiction and history in ancient literary forms, hagiography, and the great twentieth-century philologists Tadeusz Zeiliński, Eduard Norden, Ernst Robert Curtius, Leo Spitzer, and Erich Auerbach. From their work, Teuber derives a method of study that draws on prose rhythm, literary prose (Kunstprosa), topoi viewed in texts of different periods, the stylistic analysis of sentences and sense, and an archetypal distinction between mimesis in high and low style. Teuber demonstrates his method with close readings of passages from an anonymous Life of Jerome, Chrétien de Troyes, Sulpicius Severus’ Life of Martin, and the aforementioned Life of St Martin of Péan Gatineau. The author’s otherwise sharp observations on style would have benefitted from an accentual analysis of the rhythms of that Life of Jerome. As is well known, prose rhythms based on word accent were already in use in the fourth century and the so-called cursus mixtus is found in Symmachus. In the passage presented by Teuber from that text, most or all the clausulae display accentual rhythms.
The questions examined in this book often involve pronunciation, regional diversification, and prose rhythm. The complexities of Latin in Late Antiquity are in many ways comparable to those of English in the twenty-first century. We continue to witness the development of an international form of English, and in terms of diversity one might also think of the more established differences between American and British usage. Nor are the differences only or primarily a matter of spelling or word choice. For example, children’s books, with their pronounced rhythms and idiosyncratic style, are consistently mangled by those unfamiliar with the author’s accent; or, more often, their popularity is limited to the linguistic community within which they were composed. The same happened to non-standard texts in Late Antiquity; and this is one reason that texts composed in the most broadly accessible literary forms were the ones most likely to be read, copied, and imitated in later years. In this context, it is noteworthy that no one has yet attempted to produce for any non-standard form of Latin an overview such as Benjamin Kantor’s comprehensive book The Pronunciation of New Testament Greek (2023). The transmission and reception of late antique Latin literature was undoubtedly affected by the predictable levelling that has been a feature of every previous literary tradition, with their reliance on standard forms of pronunciation (the international phonetic alphabet, which was developed almost in tandem with the invention of the phonograph, has only recently allowed for diverse forms to be recorded with a degree of consistency that goes far beyond the diacritics used already in Antiquity). This is all the more reason to greet with enthusiasm the studies edited by Gauly and Arweiler. They have set the stage for a new generation of linguistic scholarship on Late Antique Latin literature by providing an excellent set of case studies that can provide raw data, fine analyses, and models for future research.
Authors and titles
Bardo M. Gauly – Einleitung
- Gerd V. M. Haverling – Literatursprache und Sprachentwicklung in der römischen Spätantike
- Wolfgang de Melo – Wenn Größe nicht zur Nachahmung führt: Varros De lingua Latina
- Sara Fascione – Sensuum novitas verborum vetustas. I neologismi in Simmaco
- Josine Schrickx – Partikel in Symmachus’ Briefen
- Fabio Stok – Il latino dei commentatori
- Jan R. Stenger – Biblische Bilderrede in der christlichen Literatur der Spätantike. Von der Exegese zur Textproduktion
- Friedrich Heberlein – Zwischen Klassizismus und Moderne: AcI und quia-/quod-Sätze bei Macrobius
- Paola Francesca Moretti – La lingua letteraria agostiniana: un affondo sull’ ‘oralità didattica’ di alcuni sermoni (s. 288 e 293A; in Ioh. I e XIV)
- Étienne Wolff – Ausone a-t-il un style propre?
- Bardo Maria Gauly – Die Vergegenwärtigung des Heiligen: Zeit und Tempus in Prudentius’ Peristephanon
- Michael Roberts – Avitus of Vienne’s De spiritalis historiae gestis: Narrating Spiritual History
- Bernhard Teuber – Von der Prosa zum Vers: Lateinische Hagiographie und mittelalterliche Nachdichtungen iuxta rusticam Romanam linguam