This thoughtful and ambitious first book takes as its subject the transformation of Christian Latin poetry over the course of the fifth century, primarily (though not exclusively) in Gaul. The central question is hinted at in the subtitle, The Poetics of Asceticism in Late Roman Gaul. How could poetic production – specifically, writing classicising Latin verse – be reconciled with the ascetic turn of the fifth century? Could a Christian committed to worldly renunciation really participate in the composition of literature in secular forms? As U. shows, this dilemma was approached in varying ways by Gallo-Roman poets. What emerges from this sensitive study is a greater appreciation of how the transition from ‘classical’ to ‘medieval’ Latin poetry plays out over the fifth century.
Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of U.’s approach is the insistence on situating Latin poetic production within fifth-century prose literature (especially theological writing) as well as in the social, cultural and political changes characterising the period (‘both a historian and a literary critic’, p. 7). This is, of course, necessary given U.’s approach, but it marks a departure from the prevailing trend in Anglophone studies of late Latin poetry, which tends to focus on continuity with or change from classical Latin verse.
The introduction opens with a consideration of the shifting definition of Christian authorship in the De viris illustribus, from Jerome’s original composition to the continuation by Gennadius of Marseilles. U. stresses (rightly) how Gennadius develops Jerome’s work in part by including more monastic writers, suggesting a broader understanding of Christian writing beyond Jerome’s focus on exegesis. U. resists, however, the temptation to read either Jerome or Gennadius as a sort of vademecum for fifth-century practices, not least given the relative paucity of Christian poets in either collection. Instead, the logic guiding Gennadius’ inclusions and omissions frames U.’s study, with a view to understanding how evolving ideas of ‘Christian reading and writing’ (p. 4) are reflected in the poetic output of the period.
The first chapter examines Augustine’s Cassiciacum dialogues, focusing on Licentius, who is torn between poetic ambition and spiritual commitment. U.’s analysis of Augustine’s response – and of its implications for attitudes towards poetry – is a particular strength. The overview of asceticism in the late Roman West is well-grounded in scholarship, and the discussion of the correspondence between Paulinus of Nola and Ausonius is usefully framed in the context of the Christianisation of Latin literature.
The second chapter turns to prose by Sulpicius Severus, John Cassian and Eucherius of Lyon, each of whom develops new models of Christian authorship in the light of Gallic monasticism. U.’s analysis of Sulpicius is particularly insightful, especially in extending A. Pelttari’s idea of late antique literature as creating space for the reader: Sulpicius insists on belief as necessary for a full appreciation of the Vita Sancti Martini (p. 63). Equally strong is the treatment of Cassian’s sermo humilis and his rejection of elite literary production. The chapter offers valuable historical context for the shift from the ‘improvisational’ (p. 64) asceticism inspired by Martin of Tours to the more regimented, elite monastic culture of Lérins.
The third chapter identifies a shared response to the barbarian invasions of 406 among a cluster of poems, including the Epigramma Paulini, the Ad coniugem and Orientius’ De providentia Dei. Following J. Fontaine (Naissance de la poésie dans l’occident chrétien [1981], pp. 229–43), U. reads these as examens de conscience (p. 96), but he develops Fontaine’s study by showing how the poems play with traditional generic forms as a way of responding to moral and spiritual concerns. While U.’s approach is persuasive – especially his close reading of the Epigramma Paulini –, I would have hoped for more discussion of how these texts extend strategies already evident in Prudentius and Paulinus of Nola. Still, it is a fine-grained historicist account of a moment in the emergence of a distinctly Christian Latin poetics.
Each of the final three chapters focuses primarily on a single author. Chapter 4 treats Paulinus of Pella’s Eucharisticos, rightly depicted as a conflicted and paradoxical work veering between humility and aristocratic nostalgia. Despite being one of the earliest Christian autobiographies after Augustine, it has not received much critical attention. U.’s reading – tracing the poem’s debts to Augustine and Ausonius’ Ephemeris – takes the work seriously on its own terms, emphasising the radical nature of writing autobiography as prayer in the context of the Semi-Pelagian controversy (p. 153).
Chapter 5 turns to Sidonius Apollinaris, emblematic of the generation after Paulinus of Pella. Though Sidonius claimed to renounce poetry when he became bishop of Clermont in 469, he returned to verse later in life. U. convincingly makes the case that this return to poetry is ‘an innovative performance of conversion’ (p. 164) rather than simply relapsing into the elite culture of Sidonius’ youth. The analysis of Sidonius’ verse in the ninth book of his letters is the highlight of the book. Here U. expertly demonstrates how Sidonius uses Horace as a model both to explain his disavowal of verse and to highlight the tension between poetry and the priesthood.
This tension outlived Sidonius, and in the final chapter U. turns to Avitus of Vienne’s De consolatoria castitatis laude, a poem written to his sister to encourage her religious vocation. U. shows that this work represents one of the clearest articulations of a Christian ars poetica in late antiquity: classicising verse is here justified only under narrowly defined, ascetically inflected conditions. It is in this poem, according to U., that we see the real emergence of ‘ascetic poetics’ (p. 216), that is, an explicit and conscious effort to write poetry according to the demands of the ascetic life.
A brief epilogue considers Ennodius of Pavia’s Eucharisticon, showing how concerns about poetry continued to preoccupy intellectuals into the sixth century. U. concludes by raising questions about the reception and transformation of ascetic poetics in early medieval literature (p. 234). What emerges most clearly is a narrative of how we get from the triumphal imperialism of Prudentius’ Peristephanon or the civic-minded Natalicia of Paulinus of Nola to the studied and more inward-looking religious poetry of later late antiquity and, ultimately, of the Carolingian age and beyond.
The book should be read by anyone interested in late antique or medieval Latin poetry. All texts are well translated, including a complete translation of Ennodius’ Eucharisticon co-authored with one of U.’s students. My quibbles are minor: quotations are in English with Latin relegated to the footnotes; verse is laid out as prose. U. refers to the title of Paulinus’ Eucharisticos in ‘the only ancient manuscript that survives’ (p. 140), but this manuscript (Bern 317, here identified by its siglum ‘B’) is from the ninth century, and only one of the two titles shown in the figures is contemporary. Greater engagement with some classic works would have been welcome – Vessey on Gennadius (M. Vessey, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 46 [1994]) and Curtius on the Muses (E.R. Curtius, ZrP 59 [1939]), in particular. There is no question, however, that U. demonstrates full command of both fifth-century literature and the extensive secondary literature, particularly the Francophone tradition stemming from J. Fontaine (and ultimately from P. Courcelle). His revival of Fontaine’s historicising approach is timely: after late Latin poetry’s ‘New Critical’ decades, with an emphasis on intertextuality and form, a more New Historicist approach is inviting.
