This volume collects essays presented at a colloquium at the university of Angers in 2016, which sought to apply M. Marghescou's notion of ‘littérarité’ (hereafter: ‘literariness’) to the field of Latin literary studies. Little known at the time of its appearance in 1974, the republication of Marghescou's study in 2009 (Le concept de littérarité) inspired the creation of a research project examining ‘the concept of literariness in Roman antiquity’; this volume significantly extends this scope to post-classical Latin literature up to the Renaissance.
In the introduction Colot lists the main points of Marghescou's theory that were seized upon by the colloquium's participants: the notion of a ‘programme of literary reading’ (‘régime de lecture littéraire’), by which certain ‘fundamental categories’ (e.g. person, space, time) assume a symbolic significance beyond their immediate referentiality. Colot rejects unspecified elements of Marghescou's theory as outdated, turning to G. Molinié and others for an approach more attuned to the historical context of texts and their reception. The volume aims to reconstitute the ‘linguistic and cultural codes’ inscribed within a work at the time of its creation to determine the criteria by which a text was defined as ‘literary’. More explanation of the theoretical models would have been helpful here, as would have been an argument for why ‘literariness’ is a useful or important lens, and what the collection intends to add to scholarship by using it.
The fourteen essays are organised by three themes and proceed chronologically within each section. The first theme centres on the way authors present themselves to their readers, with an appropriate starting point in G. Petrone's examination of Plautus. Petrone treats the well-known metatheatrical passages as metaliterary, arguing that the prologues of the Pseudolus, Amphitryo and Captivi define novelty and fiction as essential criteria not only for drama but also for literature; the most convincing part of the argument focuses on Plautus’ preoccupation with the materiality of the written form, pointing out that the equivalence drawn in the Bacchides between scriptae litterae and the warriors hidden within the Trojan horse show a highly complex relationship between drama and written text. J.-C. Julhe argues that a much-disputed passage in the preface to Martial's book of epigrams demonstrates the author's preoccupation with controlling the reception of his work; a fine-tuned analysis of passages throughout the book convincingly shows Martial's subtle exertion of authorial control even while presenting the reader (and even the reciter) as the writer of his epigrams. F. Galtier moves away from Marghescou's concept of ‘literariness’ to analyse through a narratological lens the structure of Tacitus’ narrative of the death of Germanicus in Annales 2, somewhat inconclusively arguing that the use of tragic motifs imparts a literary character to a ‘factual account’. This essay seems out of place in this section, given the different methodology and the lack of engagement with Tacitus’ presence as an author within the text.
M. Courseau breaks new ground in his argument for the literary nature of three of Ambrose of Milan's treatises (De Nabuthae, De Tobia, De Helia et ieiunio); while the implicit criteria employed need more justification (do rhetorical embellishment and aesthetic purpose equal ‘literary’?), Courseau has seized on an important insight: the complex nature of these treatises (closely reliant on Greek works; originally composed and delivered as sermons and later reworked for publication) creates an opportunity to discern Ambrose's working method as he adapted his sermons into a new, written context and for a new, classically educated audience. The final essay in this section is also one of the volume's highlights: in a lucid and authoritative discussion J. Meyers argues that the Dominican Felix Fabri (1483) sought to elevate his extensive travel narrative to the status of literature by a complex and symbolically significant symmetrical structure, through explicit statements to his readers on the interpretative strategy they were to employ, and by creating a meaningful coherence between the wandering described in the text and the rambling nature of his prose, as signalled by the work's title, highly original for the genre (Evagatorium or ‘Wandering’). In clearly explaining the criteria of literariness adopted, this essay successfully engages with Marghescou and also challenges him at key points.
The second section examines the way in which authors used literature to edify or instruct their readers. B. Pieri discusses the symbolic valence of time (one of Marghescou's ‘fundamental categories’) in Augustine and Seneca; while the comparison with Seneca adds little, Pieri's subtle reading of Confessiones 11 makes a thought-provoking case that Augustine created a work of literature that, by virtue of being narrated ‘in time’, served to instruct humans, even as it was uttered ‘in the presence of God’ (coram Deo). B. Bureau stresses the close connection between the biblical epics of late antiquity and the Bible, arguing persuasively that, far from being autonomous poems, they functioned as ‘augmented forms of the letter of the text’, using sophisticated techniques in their paraphrase to offer a readerly guide (and eventually commentary) to the original passages. C. Urlacher-Becht's innovative essay argues that the epigrammatic literature of Visigothic Spain evinces a new ‘programme of reading’ (Marghescou's ‘régime de lecture’) compared to the ancient and late antique tradition; poets like Eugenius of Toledo replaced the previous aesthetic preoccupation with a spiritual one by crafting a humble monastic persona, meant to offer spiritual instruction to a clerical elite. Rounding out this section, H. Casanova-Robin examines two Renaissance didactic poems on astrology, composed by Basinio of Parma (1425–57) and Giovanni Pontano (1429–1503); regrettably, rather than situating the discussion within the theoretical framework adopted by the volume, Casanova-Robin appeals to ancient and Renaissance debates on the poetic nature of philosophical verse, showing that, according to their varying aims and contexts, Basinio of Parma and Giovanni Pontano made distinctive use of the ancient philosophical didactic tradition.
The third and final category is less clearly defined than the previous two, dedicated to examining the ‘criteria of literariness’. R. Robert prudently suggests that texts situated on the margins of the literary canon are best suited for examining such criteria and offers a provocative essay on Cicero's and Pliny the Elder's views on the proper discourse on works of art. Based on a nuanced reading of the In Verrem, Robert argues that Cicero eschewed technical artistic discourse as devoid of humanitas, favouring a literary and intertextual approach that underlined the function of works of art as literary reminders (monumenta); drawing attention to Pliny's preoccupation with anecdotal traditions about great works of art, Robert suggests that the encyclopaedist conceived of a more reciprocal relationship between art and literature than did Cicero. Colot presents a stimulating close reading of Lactantius’ Institutiones divinae as marking an important new development, in which a Christian author for the first time attempted to create a Christian work that conformed to Latin literary criteria; in the process, Lactantius constructed the novel notion of ‘divine literature’ (divinae litterae) that encompassed both the Bible and certain pagan authors such as Virgil.
Similarly, D. James-Raoul's discussion of four manuals for composing poetry, dating between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, notes an interesting new development in Evrard the German's juxtaposition of ‘modern’ medieval works alongside ancient literature as valid models for poetic composition, yet lacks sufficient engagement with literariness as treated in this volume as well as with the broader literary trends of the period under discussion. Likewise, É. Pinto-Mathieu's essay, seeking to answer the broad question of whether Christian Latin in the Middle Ages (here defined as texts connected to a Christian religious practice and expressive of public and/or private piety) can be considered literature, fails to engage with the framework proposed by the volume and motivates insufficiently the criteria used to examine such varied works as Bernard of Cluny's De contemptu mundi and Alan of Lille's Anticlaudianus. The final essay, L. Boulègue's brief but engaging piece on Francesco Robortello's 1548 commentary on Aristotle's Poetics, deftly shows how the humanist's philological astuteness resulted in a correct understanding of Aristotle's concept of poetry (epopoia) as defined not by the formal criterion of verse but by its mimetic quality; this realisation signals a watershed in literary criticism in Europe and thus forms an appropriate end point for the volume. A brief conclusion by Colot summarises the essays and brings their findings into relation with each other.
Despite some excellent contributions, this reviewer remains unconvinced of the overall merits of the theoretical framework of ‘literariness’ (however diversely employed in the various essays) as compared to other theoretical approaches. Some of the discussions, especially of well-known classical texts, may strike the Latinist as somewhat banal, due perhaps to the limits of this framework. Clearly the most fruitful findings come in discussions of texts that are or were perceived to be on the margins of the ‘literary’. In other cases, insufficient engagement with recent scholarship makes it difficult to assess how the insights produced advance the field.
Nevertheless, Latinists will find much of interest in the broad range of essays in this volume, and while more extensive discussion in the introduction would have been desirable, they may also find it a useful starting point for theories of ‘literariness’ as formulated by Marghescou and others. Moreover, the volume avoids some of the weaknesses typical of such collections: there is a degree of coherence offered by the inclusion of an introduction and conclusion, as well as a few appropriate cross-references; there is a useful index; there are abstracts provided in both French and English (though the quality of the latter is uneven); finally, there are relatively few typos (I counted eight, all in the Latin quotations). Overall, the volume is to be commended for its diachronic scope, affording scholars the opportunity, even if limited, to trace the changing notions of what it meant to be literary in Latin.
