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Books by Christopher Whitton

Imitation was central to Roman culture, and a staple of Roman poetry. But it was also fundamental... more Imitation was central to Roman culture, and a staple of Roman poetry. But it was also fundamental to Roman prose. This book brings together two monuments of the ‘High Empire’, Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria (‘Training of the orator’) and Pliny’s Epistles, to reveal a spectacular project of textual and ethical imitation. As a young man Pliny had studied with Quintilian. In the Epistles he meticulously transforms and subsumes his teacher’s masterpiece. Tacitus’ Dialogus is drawn deep into the project, along with a wide range of poets and prose writers, making ‘Quintilian in Brief’ a case study with far-reaching implications for how we read Latin literature.

In teasing apart Pliny’s rich intertextual weave, this book reinterprets Quintilian through the eyes of one of his sharpest readers, radically reassesses the Epistles as a work of minute textual artistry, and makes a major intervention in scholarly debates on intertextuality and imitation in Roman prose and culture.

Papers by Christopher Whitton

Maia 70: 339-79, 2019

This paper puts Pliny’s Panegyricus into dialogue with his Epistles, to reveal abundant self-imit... more This paper puts Pliny’s Panegyricus into dialogue with his Epistles, to reveal
abundant self-imitation on both the small scale (brief phrases) and the large (three whole letters, epist. 3.18, 7.24 and 8.6). I offer it (1) as a case study in Pliny’s minute artistry, and (2) as a contribution towards a better understanding of intertextuality in Latin prose; it also (3) suggests that the Panegyricus was completed several years later than usually thought, perhaps at the same time as Epistles 1-9.

U. Tischer, U. Gärtner and A. Forst, eds. Text, Kontext, Kontextualisierung: Moderne Kontextkonzepte und antike Literatur, Hildesheim, 2018

This chapter considers the roles, challenges and limits of context in a philological commentary. ... more This chapter considers the roles, challenges and limits of context in a philological commentary. Taking a short letter of Pliny the Younger as its example, it proceeds in three stages. First, a comparative reading of commentaries from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries establishes some very different approaches that can be taken to contextualising this text. Second, I discuss ‘contexture’, the contextualising of (in this case) a purported fragment within its broader collection. Third, I consider intertextuality as a form of context, offering an experimental reading of Pliny’s letter against Sallust, Seneca, Cicero and Quintilian. Whether we see such intertextual traces in terms of allusion or prefer to talk of the cultural archive, I suggest, the bounds of context are ripe for expansion in the Epistles – and pose unanswerable, but unavoidable, questions for any writer or reader of commentaries.

The Domitianic cursus of Pliny the Younger has occasioned long debate. This article demonstrates ... more The Domitianic cursus of Pliny the Younger has occasioned long debate. This article demonstrates that he was praetor in either 93 or 94, and establishes the likely coordinates of his earlier career. It also shows that the trials of Herennius Senecio, Arulenus Rusticus and the younger Helvidius cannot be dated certainly to 93; that Calestrius Tiro’s career should probably be modified; and that Pliny was in all likelihood appointed praefectus aerari militaris by Domitian. His post eventum styling of this career, it is proposed, calls neither for condemnation nor for credulity.

Book Reviews by Christopher Whitton

Imitation was central to Roman culture, and a staple of Roman poetry. But it was also fundamental... more Imitation was central to Roman culture, and a staple of Roman poetry. But it was also fundamental to Roman prose. This book brings together two monuments of the ‘High Empire’, Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria (‘Training of the orator’) and Pliny’s Epistles, to reveal a spectacular project of textual and ethical imitation. As a young man Pliny had studied with Quintilian. In the Epistles he meticulously transforms and subsumes his teacher’s masterpiece. Tacitus’ Dialogus is drawn deep into the project, along with a wide range of poets and prose writers, making ‘Quintilian in Brief’ a case study with far-reaching implications for how we read Latin literature.

In teasing apart Pliny’s rich intertextual weave, this book reinterprets Quintilian through the eyes of one of his sharpest readers, radically reassesses the Epistles as a work of minute textual artistry, and makes a major intervention in scholarly debates on intertextuality and imitation in Roman prose and culture.

Maia 70: 339-79, 2019

This paper puts Pliny’s Panegyricus into dialogue with his Epistles, to reveal abundant self-imit... more This paper puts Pliny’s Panegyricus into dialogue with his Epistles, to reveal
abundant self-imitation on both the small scale (brief phrases) and the large (three whole letters, epist. 3.18, 7.24 and 8.6). I offer it (1) as a case study in Pliny’s minute artistry, and (2) as a contribution towards a better understanding of intertextuality in Latin prose; it also (3) suggests that the Panegyricus was completed several years later than usually thought, perhaps at the same time as Epistles 1-9.

U. Tischer, U. Gärtner and A. Forst, eds. Text, Kontext, Kontextualisierung: Moderne Kontextkonzepte und antike Literatur, Hildesheim, 2018

This chapter considers the roles, challenges and limits of context in a philological commentary. ... more This chapter considers the roles, challenges and limits of context in a philological commentary. Taking a short letter of Pliny the Younger as its example, it proceeds in three stages. First, a comparative reading of commentaries from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries establishes some very different approaches that can be taken to contextualising this text. Second, I discuss ‘contexture’, the contextualising of (in this case) a purported fragment within its broader collection. Third, I consider intertextuality as a form of context, offering an experimental reading of Pliny’s letter against Sallust, Seneca, Cicero and Quintilian. Whether we see such intertextual traces in terms of allusion or prefer to talk of the cultural archive, I suggest, the bounds of context are ripe for expansion in the Epistles – and pose unanswerable, but unavoidable, questions for any writer or reader of commentaries.

The Domitianic cursus of Pliny the Younger has occasioned long debate. This article demonstrates ... more The Domitianic cursus of Pliny the Younger has occasioned long debate. This article demonstrates that he was praetor in either 93 or 94, and establishes the likely coordinates of his earlier career. It also shows that the trials of Herennius Senecio, Arulenus Rusticus and the younger Helvidius cannot be dated certainly to 93; that Calestrius Tiro’s career should probably be modified; and that Pliny was in all likelihood appointed praefectus aerari militaris by Domitian. His post eventum styling of this career, it is proposed, calls neither for condemnation nor for credulity.

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