Dennis Trout | University of Missouri-Columbia (original) (raw)
Papers by Dennis Trout
A narrative of decline punctuated by periods of renewal has long structured perceptions of Rome’s... more A narrative of decline punctuated by periods of renewal has long structured perceptions of Rome’s late antique and medieval history. In their probing contributions to this volume, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars provides alternative approaches to understanding the period. Addressing developments in governance, ceremony, literature, art, music, clerical education and the construction of the city’s identity, the essays examine how a variety of actors, from poets to popes, productively addressed the intermittent crises and shifting dynamics of these centuries in ways that bolstered the city’s resilience. Without denying that the past (both pre-Christian and Christian) consistently remained a powerful touchstone, the studies in this volume offer rich new insights into the myriad ways that Romans, between the fifth and the eleventh centuries, creatively assimilated the past as they shaped their future.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Aug 1, 2001
The Medieval Review, Jan 18, 2018
Church History, Jun 1, 1999
Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2011
rectly, that psychoanalysis, whether Freudian or Lacanian, is, in fact, the “right” theory, given... more rectly, that psychoanalysis, whether Freudian or Lacanian, is, in fact, the “right” theory, given that it has been generally, if not altogether, refuted and rejected by contemporary psychological research, and its use is favored now primarily by literary theorists. For many readers, Lipsett’s readings will enhance a history of ideas about desire, transformation, or conversion, and gender in the ancient Mediterranean. Some historians and scholars of ancient religions may be less enamored of the tenuous moorings of these readings to actual ancient persons and to practices that are thereby somewhat obscured. One case in point would be the Acts of Thecla. We know from Tertullian’s virulent defamation of its alleged author that Thecla was deeply implicated in ancient contestations about women’s ability to teach, baptize, and exercise masculine prerogatives—historical circumstances that receive scant inquiry here. Brief as it is, Desiring Conversion invites discussion of many fine points that space does not permit me to raise. One hopes that the book will acquire many more interlocutors, from undergraduates to senior scholars, and that those conversations will further our thinking not just about these three compelling ancient texts, but how we might most profitably engage the many others like them. Ross S. Kraemer, Brown University
The Medieval Review, Aug 1, 2000
Early Medieval Europe, 2021
The verse epitaph of Pope Honorius (625–38) inscribed at St Peter’s in Rome and the eulogy of the... more The verse epitaph of Pope Honorius (625–38) inscribed at St Peter’s in Rome and the eulogy of the same pope that Jonas of Bobbio included in his Vita Columbani et discipuli eius (composed 639–42) share language and expressions sufficient to demonstrate that Jonas must have been familiar with Honorius’ epitaph at the time he composed the Vita’s obituary. This fact has implications for both Jonas’ biography and his literary methods. It also raises the possibility that Jonas was the author of the (otherwise anonymous) epitaph. Close reading of the Vatican epitaph highlights not only the epigram’s literary ambition and background but also identifies other correspondences with the lexical and poetic inclinations of Jonas. In turn, these observations undercut pessimism about the literary milieu of seventh‐century Rome and Italy.
Urban Developments in Late Antique and Medieval Rome, 2021
Proceedings of an International Conference to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the International Asso... more Proceedings of an International Conference to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the International Association of Patristic Studies. Brepols, 2015.
Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2015
Ancient Documents and their Contexts, 2015
Biography, archaeology and epigraphy conspire to promote the 340s, the decade of Constantina'... more Biography, archaeology and epigraphy conspire to promote the 340s, the decade of Constantina's inter-marital widowhood, as the years that saw both her patronage of Agnes's suburban funerary hall and her installation there of ambitious dedicatory epigram that, there are good reasons to believe, she herself composed for the occasion. Restoring Constantina to the list of notable early Latin Christian poets, therefore, is both a step towards rethinking the narratives of period's literary history and a way of honoring the novel roles played by metrical inscriptions in the invention of Christian Rome. One effect of Constantina's Vergilian allusion is to provoke sophisticated readers to view Agnes's resistance to male aggression and sexual violation in a religious context through lens of classically sanctioned Polyxena. Constantina's enlistment of Ovid is the neat deployment of a classical allusion to underwrite her boast in respect to her own accomplishments, poetic perhaps as well as euergetistic. Keywords: Agnes; Constantina; Epigraphy; Latin Christian poets; Ovid; Vergil
Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome
Traditio, 2020
This essay offers several reasons for reconsidering seventh-century Rome's reputation as a li... more This essay offers several reasons for reconsidering seventh-century Rome's reputation as a literary dark age. It provides close readings of several epigrams inscribed in Roman churches during and soon after the papacy of Honorius I (625–38) as evidence for a revived literary scene in the city during these years. It also argues that the intertextual maneuvers deployed by these epigrams suggest, contrary to current opinion, that Lucretius's De rerum natura had Roman readers in the early seventh century. Lucretius's “popularity” in contemporary Visigothic Spain; the likelihood that Honorius's younger contemporary and acquaintance, Jonas of Bobbio, was familiar with Lucretius; and the eventual presence of a (lost) manuscript of the De rerum natura in the library of the Bobbio monastery are enlisted in order to set both early seventh-century Rome and the De rerum natura in wider historical context. In general, this essay encourages the re-evaluation of the place of epigra...
A Companion to Ancient Epigram
A narrative of decline punctuated by periods of renewal has long structured perceptions of Rome’s... more A narrative of decline punctuated by periods of renewal has long structured perceptions of Rome’s late antique and medieval history. In their probing contributions to this volume, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars provides alternative approaches to understanding the period. Addressing developments in governance, ceremony, literature, art, music, clerical education and the construction of the city’s identity, the essays examine how a variety of actors, from poets to popes, productively addressed the intermittent crises and shifting dynamics of these centuries in ways that bolstered the city’s resilience. Without denying that the past (both pre-Christian and Christian) consistently remained a powerful touchstone, the studies in this volume offer rich new insights into the myriad ways that Romans, between the fifth and the eleventh centuries, creatively assimilated the past as they shaped their future.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Aug 1, 2001
The Medieval Review, Jan 18, 2018
Church History, Jun 1, 1999
Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2011
rectly, that psychoanalysis, whether Freudian or Lacanian, is, in fact, the “right” theory, given... more rectly, that psychoanalysis, whether Freudian or Lacanian, is, in fact, the “right” theory, given that it has been generally, if not altogether, refuted and rejected by contemporary psychological research, and its use is favored now primarily by literary theorists. For many readers, Lipsett’s readings will enhance a history of ideas about desire, transformation, or conversion, and gender in the ancient Mediterranean. Some historians and scholars of ancient religions may be less enamored of the tenuous moorings of these readings to actual ancient persons and to practices that are thereby somewhat obscured. One case in point would be the Acts of Thecla. We know from Tertullian’s virulent defamation of its alleged author that Thecla was deeply implicated in ancient contestations about women’s ability to teach, baptize, and exercise masculine prerogatives—historical circumstances that receive scant inquiry here. Brief as it is, Desiring Conversion invites discussion of many fine points that space does not permit me to raise. One hopes that the book will acquire many more interlocutors, from undergraduates to senior scholars, and that those conversations will further our thinking not just about these three compelling ancient texts, but how we might most profitably engage the many others like them. Ross S. Kraemer, Brown University
The Medieval Review, Aug 1, 2000
Early Medieval Europe, 2021
The verse epitaph of Pope Honorius (625–38) inscribed at St Peter’s in Rome and the eulogy of the... more The verse epitaph of Pope Honorius (625–38) inscribed at St Peter’s in Rome and the eulogy of the same pope that Jonas of Bobbio included in his Vita Columbani et discipuli eius (composed 639–42) share language and expressions sufficient to demonstrate that Jonas must have been familiar with Honorius’ epitaph at the time he composed the Vita’s obituary. This fact has implications for both Jonas’ biography and his literary methods. It also raises the possibility that Jonas was the author of the (otherwise anonymous) epitaph. Close reading of the Vatican epitaph highlights not only the epigram’s literary ambition and background but also identifies other correspondences with the lexical and poetic inclinations of Jonas. In turn, these observations undercut pessimism about the literary milieu of seventh‐century Rome and Italy.
Urban Developments in Late Antique and Medieval Rome, 2021
Proceedings of an International Conference to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the International Asso... more Proceedings of an International Conference to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the International Association of Patristic Studies. Brepols, 2015.
Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2015
Ancient Documents and their Contexts, 2015
Biography, archaeology and epigraphy conspire to promote the 340s, the decade of Constantina'... more Biography, archaeology and epigraphy conspire to promote the 340s, the decade of Constantina's inter-marital widowhood, as the years that saw both her patronage of Agnes's suburban funerary hall and her installation there of ambitious dedicatory epigram that, there are good reasons to believe, she herself composed for the occasion. Restoring Constantina to the list of notable early Latin Christian poets, therefore, is both a step towards rethinking the narratives of period's literary history and a way of honoring the novel roles played by metrical inscriptions in the invention of Christian Rome. One effect of Constantina's Vergilian allusion is to provoke sophisticated readers to view Agnes's resistance to male aggression and sexual violation in a religious context through lens of classically sanctioned Polyxena. Constantina's enlistment of Ovid is the neat deployment of a classical allusion to underwrite her boast in respect to her own accomplishments, poetic perhaps as well as euergetistic. Keywords: Agnes; Constantina; Epigraphy; Latin Christian poets; Ovid; Vergil
Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome
Traditio, 2020
This essay offers several reasons for reconsidering seventh-century Rome's reputation as a li... more This essay offers several reasons for reconsidering seventh-century Rome's reputation as a literary dark age. It provides close readings of several epigrams inscribed in Roman churches during and soon after the papacy of Honorius I (625–38) as evidence for a revived literary scene in the city during these years. It also argues that the intertextual maneuvers deployed by these epigrams suggest, contrary to current opinion, that Lucretius's De rerum natura had Roman readers in the early seventh century. Lucretius's “popularity” in contemporary Visigothic Spain; the likelihood that Honorius's younger contemporary and acquaintance, Jonas of Bobbio, was familiar with Lucretius; and the eventual presence of a (lost) manuscript of the De rerum natura in the library of the Bobbio monastery are enlisted in order to set both early seventh-century Rome and the De rerum natura in wider historical context. In general, this essay encourages the re-evaluation of the place of epigra...
A Companion to Ancient Epigram