What a fascinating contribution to our understanding of fifth-century Gaul, bringing together politics, poetry, religious practices and various ideas about Christian asceticism that shaped the cultural landscape of late Roman and post-Roman Gaul. In this monograph, his first, David Ungvary shows how Latin poetry both reacted to and in turn influenced views about how best to lead one’s life as a Christian aristocrat in the changing world of late antique Gaul.

The first chapter focuses on Paulinus of Nola. Following Augustine, U. argues that Paulinus served as a model to other Christians in two ways: firstly by becoming an ‘ascetic’ Christian when he moved from Gaul to Nola and set up a cult centre for Felix, and secondly by guiding other poets in writing Christian poetry through expressing aspects of his asceticism in learned verse himself. The debate about the correct use of literary language and texts by ascetic Christians in early fifth-century Gaul is at the centre of the second chapter: Sulpicius Severus’ Life of St Martin, Cassian’s Collationes and the voices of aristocrats (e.g. Eucherius of Lyon) who had withdrawn to Lérins to practise an asceticism that was not far off the traditional otium lifestyle enjoyed by members of the Roman upper class on countryside estates.

The first two chapters lay the foundation for the discussion of poetry in the rest of the book: the ‘poetry of the post-406 movement’ such as the generically ambivalent Epigramma Paulini, excerpts from the Carmen de providentia and the Ad coniugem, both characterised as metrical hybrids and metapoetical commentary (ch. 3), Paulinus of Pella’s Eucharisticos, a literary experiment turning a confessional diary into a prayer of thanksgiving (ch. 4), the poems that Sidonius Apollinaris composed as a bishop, which negotiate the tensions between his former literary creativity and the constraints of asceticism (ch. 5) and Avitus of Vienne’s poetic celebration of virginity (De consolatoria castitatis laude), among many other things a promotion of poetry within a Christian framework (ch. 6). An epilogue on Ennodius of Pavia’s Eucharisticon explores the influence of Gallo-Christian poetics outside Gaul, across the realm of the (former) Roman empire.

The volume proceeds chronologically through the fifth century, in each chapter contextualising the poet or poetry in question within the political situation and Christian intellectual discourse, thus focusing on what U. calls the ‘social logic of poetry’ (e.g. 7). The chronological arrangement of the book allows for a reading that sees the poetry discussed in each chapter as defining stages in a historical process: starting out with expressing secular learnedness and Roman aristocratic identity, Latin poetry in fifth- and sixth-century Gaul steadily moves closer to Christianity until it merges with it. The poems studied here draw attention to the experimental character of much of this poetry, for instance the unique combination of (Christianised) bucolic and traditional satire in the Epigramma Paulini. Despite the teleological line of argument, each chapter engages with paradox and conflict, for example, Sidonius’ insertion of poems into prose letters that both highlight and undermine his professed move towards a more serious and less secular use of language and style. Sometimes contradictions arise between poetry and ascetic practice, the theories behind them or other Christian teaching. In ch. 4, for example, U. contrasts both Paulinus of Pella’s use of prayer in his Eucharisticos with the theory of prayer in the ninth book of Cassian’s Colloquia and the poet’s defence of his aristocratic lifestyle with Salvian of Marseille’s attacks on it.

Overall, there is much to gain from U.’s monograph. In his close readings of poetry U. explains intertextual references, both classical and biblical, explores parallels with and contradictions to other Latin writing of the time, draws on ascetic practices to illuminate aspects of the text and embeds the literature in the political context. The book also evokes networks of people, texts, ideas and doctrines across (southern) Gaul and — to a lesser extent — other regions of the (former) Western empire. The virtues of a positivist American scholarly tradition shine through this book: it is well researched and composed in a learned style with occasionally curiously exclusive lexical choices. U. also engages with some continental European scholarship and gives an authoritative account of not just ascetic poetry of fifth-century Gaul but also the historical context of the poets and their works.

At times, I would have liked to interrupt the authoritative voice and ask for more depth even if that had come at the cost of breadth. For example, the term ‘movement’ appears quite frequently, including for a first and a second ascetic movement as well as for ‘the post-406 movement’, the last of which refers to a collection of poems that mark the tensions between the Latin poetic tradition, asceticism and an environment shaped by violence and material destruction. I also sensed a contrast between the Romano-centric historical accounts, in which ‘barbarians’ (including the ominous ‘Kingdom of Soissons’: 168) feature prominently and (often) antagonistically, and the much more nuanced discussions of poetry that foreground transformations of various kinds: classical into Christian, secular into ascetic, learning into practice, texts into lives. A more historically selective account would also have allowed the starting point of the study to be moved further back to include the intriguing fourth-century poem Laudes Domini with its localisation among the Aeduans. None of this, however, should detract from the enormous value of U.’s presentation.