This new monograph offers an in-depth exploration of visual narratives in Statius’ poetry by focusing on both their intratextual significance and their intertextual engagement with Greek and Latin literary models. In studying the interplay between visuality and intertextuality in important passages of Statius’ poems, the book shows how descriptive narratives – broadly understood – can be said to epitomise Statius’ visual poetics and offer insights into the poems’ interactions with the cultural and material aspects of the empire.
The highly visual and allusive nature of Statius’ poetry has often been noted by scholars (H. Lovatt, Ramus 31 [2002]; C. Chinn, CJ 100 [2005]; K. Gervais, in: H. Lovatt and C. Vout [edd.], Epic Visions [2013]), as C. acknowledges in the introduction. However, Statian scholarship has tended to study this theme in the Silvae (C. Newlands, Statius’ Silvae [2002]), the Thebaid (F. Econimo, La Parola e gli Occhi [2021]) and the Achilleid (F. Bessone, Helios 45 [2018]) separately. Accordingly, this new book explores the interactions between intertextuality (J. Kristeva, Desire in Language [1980]), gaze (H. Lovatt, The Epic Gaze [2013]) and visuality (S. Blundell et al., Helios 40 [2013]; M. Squire, Sight and the Ancient Senses [2015]) across Statius’ works. In doing so, it innovatively blends traditional approaches to the study of the meta-poetic and proleptic possibilities of well-defined ekphrases (J. Elsner and S. Bartsch, CP 102 [2007]; S. Harrison, in: G. Manuwald and A. Voigt [edd.], Flavian Epic Interactions [2013]) with the intertextual, historicist and sometimes gendered analysis of less structured descriptive narratives (D. Fowler, JRS 81 [1991]). Specifically, it argues that these narratives may be considered as ‘visual intertexts’, showing how Statius appropriates, comments on and reworks the visual practices of his predecessors. Although the book does not discuss modern theories of semantic intertextuality (M. Panagiotidou, JLS 41 [2012]) and intermediality (I. Rajewsky, Intermédialités 6 [2005]; M. Dinter, Intermediality [2019]) in detail, the analysis not only illuminates new aspects of Statius’ poetic technique, but also prompts broader reflections on the role played by (intratextual/extratextual) ‘viewers-readers’ in the interpretation of ancient texts (J. Elsner, Roman Eyes [2007]; W. Johnson, Readers and Reading Culture [2010]).
The book is organised in nine chapters (excluding introduction and conclusion) that focus on the Thebaid (Chapters 1–4), the Achilleid (Chapter 5) and the Silvae (Chapters 6–9). At the core of C.'s reading of Statius’ epic is the idea that, while the Thebaid and the Achilleid do not contain monumental ekphrases, Statius’ descriptive passages often substitute ‘images for narrative’ (p. 295) in order to visually recall, miniaturise and set the narratives of his predecessors in intertextual dialogue, thus emphasising alternative interpretative possibilities for them. In addition to illuminating the ‘visually affective qualities’ (p. 11) of Statius’ writing, this interpretation complements recent studies on Statius’ use of contrastive intertextuality in the Thebaid (C. McNelis, Statius’ Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War [2007]; T. Spinelli, AJPh 140 [2019]).
Chapters 1 and 2 enrich our understanding of Statius’ Greek models (A. Augoustakis [ed.], Flavian Poetry [2014]) by focusing on the catalogue of the Argive heroes in Thebaid 4. While the chiastic arrangement of Statius’ descriptions of the heroes seems to recall the visual logic of Aeschylus’ descriptions of the Argives in the Septem, the analysis convincingly suggests that Statius replaces the masculine perspective of Aeschylus’ Eteocles with the feminine gaze of Argia and Atlanta (Theb. 4.89–213). This innovation, which builds on Euripides’ descriptions of Antigone and Jocasta in the Phoenissae, creates an intertextual (gendered) tension that opens Statius’ catalogue to polyphonic interpretations. Compelling is the argument that Statius’ catalogue also sets Virgil's static description of heroes in Aeneid 7 in visual and intertextual dialogue with Homer's dynamic ‘tour of Greece’ in the Catalogue of Ships (Iliad 2), prompting reflections on different ways of visualising this epic topos. Chapter 3 argues that the descriptions of Harmonia's necklace, the Temple of Mars and the House of Sleep in the Thebaid create a visual meta-narrative that activates the memory of the Venus–Mars adultery story via allusions to Homer and Virgil. Readers less used to semiotic readings of literature may not immediately recognise ‘a geographical image of the empire’ (p. 18) in these ekphrases, but the chapter interestingly shows how this adultery meta-narrative emphasises interpretative problems inherent to the Aeneid and to its view of Rome. This theme is developed in Chapter 4, where Statius’ descriptions of Crenaeus’ and Theseus’ shields and their allusions to Catullus 64 are interpreted as a deviant surrogate for the lack of a monumental shield description such as that visualising the symbolic and politically loaded decorations of Aeneas’ shield in the Aeneid. Chapter 5 interestingly shows how the visual descriptions of the blush accompanying Achilles’ camouflage as a girl in the Achilleid suggest that this apparently transgressive narrative works within the framework of conventional Roman conceptions of masculinity and shame.
The second half of the book explores how vision and gaze tend to be thematised in the Silvae. Chapter 6 suggests that Statius’ visual language in Silvae 1.1 not only makes readers ‘see’ the equestrian statue of Domitian and the surrounding forum, but also allusively embeds in this narrated space the imagery deployed in the Aeneid to suggest the teleological nature of Rome's history. While some may see room for darker interpretations of these allusions to Virgil, the analysis helpfully shows how Statius’ visual allusivity can be said to influence the readers’ perceptions of the semiotics of Rome's cityscape (F. Marcello, in: S. Martin-McAuliffe and D. Millette [edd.], Ancient Urban Planning [2018]). Enriched by the consideration of Statius’ allusions to Horace in the description of the statuette of Hercules (Silvae 4.6) in Chapter 7, C.'s analysis of the ‘statue poems’ also suggests the meta-poetic significance of Statius praising these objects, whose beauty is given by the artist in the real world but visualised (and re-created) in a fictional literary form through the poet's art. Chapter 8 uses a historicist approach to reflect on how Statius’ allusions to Horace and Virgil in the highly visual descriptions of two villas (Silvae 1.3; 2.2) complicate the Roman moralising discourse on condemnation of luxury and valorisation of simple lifestyles by proposing ways of ‘seeing’ these estates that emphasise the labor and artistry involved in their creation. By building on modern reconsiderations of the role played by Ovidian intertexts in Statius’ poetry (A. Keith, Hermathena 177–8 [2004]) and the idea of ‘sexualised gaze’ as developed in the realm of Film Studies (L. Mulvey, Screen 16 [1975]), Chapter 9 explores the objectifying and scopophilic gaze that emerges in the descriptions of a bath complex (Silvae 1.5) and a tree (Silvae 2.3) as a way to comment – intertextually – on Augustan erotic visualities. The book ends by offering a seminal analysis of the reception of Statius’ visual strategies in the works of later poets such as Dracontius, Claudian and Ausonius.
Overall, in its sophisticated cross-fertilisation of intertextual, historicist and essentialist approaches to the study of visual narratives, C.'s book not only offers fresh insights into Statius’ models and poetic technique, but also shows how the Flavian poet combines visual aesthetics and politics through an innovative use of thematic and visual intertextuality that can be said to activate the readers’ memory of semiotically meaningful images. More broadly, this new study advances our understanding of literary visualities and ancient ‘viewing cultures’ by reflecting on the inherently polyphonic nature of visual narratives, on their poetic and political possibilities, and on the ways in which they can influence the ancient readers’ interpretations of both literary texts and their contemporary realities.
