Ian Fielding | University of Michigan (original) (raw)

Books by Ian Fielding

Ovid could be considered the original poet of late antiquity. In his exile poetry, he depicts a w... more Ovid could be considered the original poet of late antiquity. In his exile poetry, he depicts a world in which Rome has become a distant memory, a community accessible only through his imagination. This, Ovid claimed, was a transformation as remarkable as any he had recounted in his Metamorphoses. Ian Fielding's book shows how late antique Latin poets referred to Ovid's experiences of isolation and estrangement as they reflected on the profound social and cultural transformations taking place in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries AD. There are detailed new readings of texts by major figures such as Ausonius, Paulinus of Nola, Boethius and Venantius Fortunatus. For these authors, Fielding emphasizes, Ovid was not simply a stylistic model, but an important intellectual presence. Ovid's fortunes in late antiquity reveal that poetry, far from declining into irrelevance, remained a powerful mode of expression in this fascinating period.

CONTENTS
Introduction: a poet between two worlds
1. Ovid Recalled in the Poetic Correspondence of Ausonius and Paulinus of Nola
2. Ovid and the Transformation of the Late Roman World of Rutilius Namatianus
3. The Poet and the Vandal Prince: Ovidian Rhetoric in Dracontius' Satisfactio
4. The Remedies of Elegy in Ovid, Boethius and Maximianus
5. The Ovidian Heroine of Venantius Fortunatus, Appendix 1
Conclusion: Ovid's Late Antiquity.

Articles and chapters by Ian Fielding

In J. Hartman and H. Kaufmann (eds.), A Late Antique Poetics? The Jeweled Style Revisited (Bloomsbury), 2023

Use the following discount codes to save 35% on bloomsbury.com/9781350346406. UK, Europe, Midd... more Use the following discount codes to save 35% on bloomsbury.com/9781350346406.

UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, South and Central America: GLR BD8UK
USA: GLR BD8US
Canada: GLR BD8CA
Australia and New Zealand: GLR BD8AU

Michael Roberts has revealed that, when he published The Jeweled Style in 1989, he did not know that the phrase ‘jeweled style’ had been coined almost a century before by Oscar Wilde. In The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Lord Henry Wotton gives Gray an unidentified ‘yellow book’, written in a ‘curious jewelled style … that characterises the work of some of the finest artists of the French school of symbolistes’. Wilde admitted later that this ‘yellow book’ was modelled on Joris-Karl Huysmans’ À rebours (1884). This chapter explores the chain of receptions that links Roberts, via Wilde, with Huysmans – whose protagonist, Jean des Esseintes, is characterized as a connoisseur of late antique Latin literature. It argues that, for these nineteenth-century authors, jewels are not simply stylistic metaphors, but reflect ideas about cultural exchange in the late Roman Empire that still influence the way Latin texts are viewed.

In T.E. Franklinos and L. Fulkerson (eds.), Constructing authors and readers in the Appendices Vergiliana, Tibulliana, and Ouidiana (Oxford University Press), 2020

This essay explores the significance of a model of collaborative authorship for the Sulpicia eleg... more This essay explores the significance of a model of collaborative authorship for the Sulpicia elegies in the Appendix Tibulliana ([Tib.] 3.8–18). As is well known, these poems represent the most substantial corpus of extant women’s writing in Latin from pre-Christian antiquity—but some classicists have doubted that they were actually written by the niece of the prominent literary patron Messalla Corvinus. In part, these doubts arise from quirks in the way Sulpicia is presented—above all, the switch from a first- to a third-person perspective in [Tib.] 3.8, 3.10, and 3.12. It is argued here, however, that Sulpicia would have been required to conceal her authorial identity, to some extent, by patriarchal restrictions on the presence of women in the public sphere. I draw attention to the evidence of Pliny, Ep. 4.19.3, which indicates that Roman women who were still under the direct control of male guardians had to be hidden from view at formal recitationes. I suggest that Sulpicia’s poetry may originally have been recited by a slave or freedwoman lectrix like Sulpicia Petale, whose verse epitaph (AE 1928: 73) has been attributed to Sulpicia the elegist by Jane Stevenson (2005: 42–4). Moreover, I consider the possibility that Sulpicia’s poems might have been written in partnership with other members of her household, along the lines that Gurd 2012 has highlighted for authors such as Cicero. Finally, a detailed reading of the programmatic [Tib.] 3.13 shows Sulpicia reaching out to the Roman literary community of which she was not allowed full membership, and inviting women readers in particular to engage with her in textual collaboration.

Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici, 2019

The ager Campanus, once celebrated as the most fertile land in Italy, fell on hard economic times... more The ager Campanus, once celebrated as the most fertile land in Italy, fell on hard economic times during the fourth century A.D. This article shows how Paulinus of Nola, praising his patron saint Felix, redefines Campania's felicitas in terms of spiritual, rather than agricultural, productivity.
—For a full electronic offprint, please contact me at fieldian@umich.edu.

In A. Augoustakis and R.J. Littlewood (eds.), Campania in the Flavian poetic imagination (Oxford University Press), 2019

This is the final submitted version of my chapter, with the addition of a few paragraphs (pp. 8–1... more This is the final submitted version of my chapter, with the addition of a few paragraphs (pp. 8–10) that I did not have room for in print.

ABSTRACT: In 1418, Poggio Bracciolini, a papal secretary attending the Council of Constance on the border of Germany and Switzerland, sent a manuscript (Matritensis Bibl. Nat. 3678) containing Statius’ Siluae back to Italy. For Dante, a century before, the famous epic poet of the Thebaid had been a native of Toulouse (Purg. 21.81–90), but it was revealed in the Siluae that he was, in fact, a Neapolitan. Abbamonte 2015 has begun to survey the impact of the discovery of the Siluae on the intellectual culture of Naples in this period. This article offers more detailed examination of Statius’ influence on Neapolitan Latin poets like Giovanni Pontano (1429–1503) and Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530), and the way they portray their relationships with the city.

Ramus, 2018

Scholars tend to assume that most of the people who gathered at Cimitile for the annual festival ... more Scholars tend to assume that most of the people who gathered at Cimitile for the annual festival of St. Felix would not have been able to appreciate the allusive literary technique of the Natalicia, the poems that Paulinus of Nola recited there in honor of the saint each year. It is important to remember, though, that many classical texts would also have been performed in this type of popular environment. Virgil’s works were adapted for the theatre, and Paulinus’ contemporaries (e.g. Jer. Ep. 21.13, Aug. Serm. 241.5) criticized the influence of these Virgilian entertainments on their fellow Christians. In this article, I argue that Paulinus presents his Natalicia as an alternative to the dramatic forms in which Virgil appeared on the late antique stage.

Arion, 2017

On the reception of Horace (mainly the Satires) in the work of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño ... more On the reception of Horace (mainly the Satires) in the work of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003).

Maximianus’ fifth elegy recounts a failed erotic encounter between the Roman poet and an unnamed ... more Maximianus’ fifth elegy recounts a failed erotic encounter between the Roman poet and an unnamed Greek Girl during an ambassadorial mission to Constantinople in the middle of the sixth century. The poem is infamous for its graphic portrayal of male erectile dysfunction, but this paper draws attention to a specific reference to a medical disorder affecting the female body. More precisely, we argue that the ‘grauior morbus’ by which Maximianus says his lover must be oppressed at 5.108 is an allusion to the affliction known in antiquity as uterine suffocation (hysterikē apnoia: cf. Gal. Loc. Aff. 6.5, Aët. Tetr. 16.70). As our reading will show, ancient medical authors provide a new context for interpreting the Greek Girl’s comments about sexual reproduction as part of contemporary debates about ascetic renunciation.

In Scott McGill and Joseph M. Pucci (edd.), Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Lat... more In Scott McGill and Joseph M. Pucci (edd.), Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity (Heidelberg: Winter, 2016).

Illinois Classical Studies 40.1: 185-205, 2015

This article explains how Virgil’s traditional association with Naples inspired the fourteenth-ce... more This article explains how Virgil’s traditional association with Naples inspired the fourteenth-century humanist poets Francesco Petrarca and Giovanni Boccaccio to set their own Virgilian eclogues in the same city. Petrarch began his Bucolicum Carmen by composing an allegorical eclogue about the death of his patron Robert of Anjou, the King of Naples; and in imitation of this poem, his admiring friend Boccaccio later wrote a series of Neapolitan eclogues depicting the events that followed Robert’s death. As Petrarch and Boccaccio each had different relationships with Naples, it will be shown that the city represents their respective ideals of poetic otium.

Illinois Classical Studies 40.1: 85-90, 2015

Introduction to the special section of Illinois Classical Studies 40.1 (2015) 85-205. The papers ... more Introduction to the special section of Illinois Classical Studies 40.1 (2015) 85-205. The papers are based on those presented at an organizer-refereed panel at the 144th Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association in Seattle in January 2013.

Journal of Early Christian Studies 22.4: 569-85 (copyright Johns Hopkins University Press), 2014

Orientius’s Commonitorium contains a well-known passage describing the damage done to the landsca... more Orientius’s Commonitorium contains a well-known passage describing the damage done to the landscape of Gaul following the barbarian invasions of the early fifth century. This article examines the juxtaposition of the ruined physical world and the spiritual world beyond in the Commonitorium and three other poetic texts from this period — the Epigramma Paulini, Ad Coniugem, and De Prouidentia Dei. Compared to his contemporaries, Orientius is shown to be less absolute in his renunciation of the world around him. Situating these works in the ecclesiastical context of Gaul in the fifth century, I argue that Orientius offers a pastoral perspective on the Christian's relationship with the wider world, whereas his fellow poets represent the more exclusive views of the emerging ascetic elite.

Classical Quarterly 64.2: 808-20 (copyright Cambridge University Press), 2014

Classica et Mediaevalia 64: 269-85, 2013

This article examines Prudentius’s representation of the virgin martyr Eulalia of Mérida as a med... more This article examines Prudentius’s representation of the virgin martyr Eulalia of Mérida as a medium of the divine Word. Contemporary accounts of Christ’s incarnation emphasized the role of the virgin body in introducing the Word to flesh. Drawing attention to these important influences on the poet, my reading will demonstrate that Prudentius portrays Eulalia as an example of how divinity can be manifested in physical things. It is in this context, I argue, that we should understand the famous passage in which Eulalia describes her martyred body as a text inscribed with Christ (3.136-40).

In C.E. Newlands and J.F. Miller, eds., A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell) 100-13., 2014

This chapter examines the reception of Ovid’s erotic and exilic elegies in the Latin literature o... more This chapter examines the reception of Ovid’s erotic and exilic elegies in the Latin literature of late antiquity (fourth to sixth centuries CE). Revising Hermann Fränkel’s thesis of Ovid as a “poet between two worlds,” it draws particular attention to a number of examples in which late antique authors allude to Ovid as a means of reflecting on the transitions taking place in their own time, with the emergence of Christianity and the disintegration of the Roman Empire. Texts discussed include Rutilius Namatianus, De Reditu; Dracontius, Satisfactio; Orientius, Commonitorium; and the elegiac collection of Maximianus.

Arethusa 43.3: 439-60, 2010

Conferences by Ian Fielding

A Cronaca published in Bollettino di Studi Latini 45.2 (2015) 705-8.

The third annual conference of the International Society for Late Antique Literary Studies (ISLAL... more The third annual conference of the International Society for Late Antique Literary Studies (ISLALS) will be held at TORCH, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, on 1-2 July 2015. This conference, on the topic of ‘local connections’, will explore the place of literature in the shifting geography of late antiquity. The transfer of imperial power away from Rome and the founding of Constantinople in the early fourth century had a profound effect on the literary culture of the ancient Mediterranean. In the west, this is the era in which ‘Roman’ literature can be seen to become ‘Latin’ literature, as authors and readers spread out from the capital to form regional literary communities in other parts of Italy, Gaul, Spain, and Africa. Greek literature had been produced in these sorts of local contexts for a much longer period of time, but in the east as well, new centers of literary activity were emerging in late antiquity. Papers will therefore examine the ways in which local landscapes and communities are represented in late antique literary texts.

The 2015 ISLALS conference is generously supported by the Oxford Faculty of Classics, the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, and the Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity. To register to attend, please email Ian Fielding (ian.fielding@classics.ox.ac.uk) by Wednesday, 10 June. A delegate fee (covering the cost of catering) of £6 per day can be paid in cash on arrival at the conference.

As a point of intersection between the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, Campania was an imp... more As a point of intersection between the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, Campania was an important centre of artistic and intellectual activity from the second century BC, one in which some of the most notable works of ‘Roman’ literature were composed and set. The aim of this conference is to examine how the distinctive environment of Campania shaped, and was shaped by, the works of literature and art that were produced in the region.

With the wealth of ancient textual and material evidence that survives from Campania, this event will provide an opportunity for specialists from across a wide disciplinary spectrum to investigate the various modes of interaction within the region’s creative communities. Papers will explore the correspondences between different forms of cultural practice – literary, material, and visual – in Campania, and the role of those different practices in the formation of regional ‘micro-identities’, from antiquity to the early modern period. This interdisciplinary approach will not only show how writers and artists responded to Campania’s natural and man-made landscapes, but also demonstrate that literature and visual art were themselves used as a means of articulating the identities of local people and places.

The influence of Greek and Latin epic poetry pervades the spaces of Campania – from mythical locations such as Lake Avernus and the cave of the Cumaean Sibyl, to the paintings, mosaics, and graffiti preserved in the buildings of Pompeii. Papers at this meeting will give particular attention to these and to other sites, in which the local and trans-local (Greek, Roman, Oscan) aspects of the region’s identity are juxtaposed. Another objective of the conference is to draw attention to the influence of Epicurean philosophy on Campania’s ancient culture. The presence of Hellenistic intellectuals such as Philodemus of Gadara helped to characterise the region as a place of philosophical retreat and contentment during the first century BC. Attention will be given to the variety of contexts in which Epicureanism is evoked, including the architecture of Campanian villas, and in epigraphic poetry.

In addition, this event will develop our appreciation of the importance of Campania for the study of the ancient world by examining its reception in later traditions of antiquity. The existing histories of the cultural life of ancient Campania generally only extend as far as the end of the fourth century AD (D’Arms 1970). As a result, there has been little enquiry into the question of whether, and how, classical culture was preserved in the region after the Roman Empire. Speakers at the proposed conference will demonstrate the influence of local poets such as Virgil and Statius on post-classical authors such as Paulinus of Nola. Furthermore, emphasis will be placed on the revival of ancient culture in the literary, artistic, and architectural works that were produced in Campania during the medieval and Early Modern periods.

The British School at Rome provides the ideal context in which to pursue these interdisciplinary objectives. There is a distinguished tradition of the study of Campania by BSR scholars (Frederiksen/Purcell 1984; Arthur 2002), and the proposed conference would also contribute to the School’s prioritised research theme, ‘Rethinking the Bay of Naples’. Through these collaborations, it will be possible to understand the impact of Campania’s ancient culture in a broader perspective.

Speakers: Dr Bianca De Divitiis (Napoli Fed. II); Prof Marilynn Desmond (SUNY Binghamton); Dr Peter Heslin (Durham); Prof Peter Knox (UC Boulder); Prof Carole Newlands (UC Boulder); Dr Zahra Newby (Warwick); Alison Pollard (Oxford); Dr J.J.L. Smolenaars (Amsterdam); Dr Diana Spencer (Birmingham); Prof Dennis Trout; Prof Steven Tuck (Miami Ohio); Prof Carlo Vecce (Napoli L'Orientale).""

Book Reviews by Ian Fielding

Ovid could be considered the original poet of late antiquity. In his exile poetry, he depicts a w... more Ovid could be considered the original poet of late antiquity. In his exile poetry, he depicts a world in which Rome has become a distant memory, a community accessible only through his imagination. This, Ovid claimed, was a transformation as remarkable as any he had recounted in his Metamorphoses. Ian Fielding's book shows how late antique Latin poets referred to Ovid's experiences of isolation and estrangement as they reflected on the profound social and cultural transformations taking place in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries AD. There are detailed new readings of texts by major figures such as Ausonius, Paulinus of Nola, Boethius and Venantius Fortunatus. For these authors, Fielding emphasizes, Ovid was not simply a stylistic model, but an important intellectual presence. Ovid's fortunes in late antiquity reveal that poetry, far from declining into irrelevance, remained a powerful mode of expression in this fascinating period.

CONTENTS
Introduction: a poet between two worlds
1. Ovid Recalled in the Poetic Correspondence of Ausonius and Paulinus of Nola
2. Ovid and the Transformation of the Late Roman World of Rutilius Namatianus
3. The Poet and the Vandal Prince: Ovidian Rhetoric in Dracontius' Satisfactio
4. The Remedies of Elegy in Ovid, Boethius and Maximianus
5. The Ovidian Heroine of Venantius Fortunatus, Appendix 1
Conclusion: Ovid's Late Antiquity.

In J. Hartman and H. Kaufmann (eds.), A Late Antique Poetics? The Jeweled Style Revisited (Bloomsbury), 2023

Use the following discount codes to save 35% on bloomsbury.com/9781350346406. UK, Europe, Midd... more Use the following discount codes to save 35% on bloomsbury.com/9781350346406.

UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, South and Central America: GLR BD8UK
USA: GLR BD8US
Canada: GLR BD8CA
Australia and New Zealand: GLR BD8AU

Michael Roberts has revealed that, when he published The Jeweled Style in 1989, he did not know that the phrase ‘jeweled style’ had been coined almost a century before by Oscar Wilde. In The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Lord Henry Wotton gives Gray an unidentified ‘yellow book’, written in a ‘curious jewelled style … that characterises the work of some of the finest artists of the French school of symbolistes’. Wilde admitted later that this ‘yellow book’ was modelled on Joris-Karl Huysmans’ À rebours (1884). This chapter explores the chain of receptions that links Roberts, via Wilde, with Huysmans – whose protagonist, Jean des Esseintes, is characterized as a connoisseur of late antique Latin literature. It argues that, for these nineteenth-century authors, jewels are not simply stylistic metaphors, but reflect ideas about cultural exchange in the late Roman Empire that still influence the way Latin texts are viewed.

In T.E. Franklinos and L. Fulkerson (eds.), Constructing authors and readers in the Appendices Vergiliana, Tibulliana, and Ouidiana (Oxford University Press), 2020

This essay explores the significance of a model of collaborative authorship for the Sulpicia eleg... more This essay explores the significance of a model of collaborative authorship for the Sulpicia elegies in the Appendix Tibulliana ([Tib.] 3.8–18). As is well known, these poems represent the most substantial corpus of extant women’s writing in Latin from pre-Christian antiquity—but some classicists have doubted that they were actually written by the niece of the prominent literary patron Messalla Corvinus. In part, these doubts arise from quirks in the way Sulpicia is presented—above all, the switch from a first- to a third-person perspective in [Tib.] 3.8, 3.10, and 3.12. It is argued here, however, that Sulpicia would have been required to conceal her authorial identity, to some extent, by patriarchal restrictions on the presence of women in the public sphere. I draw attention to the evidence of Pliny, Ep. 4.19.3, which indicates that Roman women who were still under the direct control of male guardians had to be hidden from view at formal recitationes. I suggest that Sulpicia’s poetry may originally have been recited by a slave or freedwoman lectrix like Sulpicia Petale, whose verse epitaph (AE 1928: 73) has been attributed to Sulpicia the elegist by Jane Stevenson (2005: 42–4). Moreover, I consider the possibility that Sulpicia’s poems might have been written in partnership with other members of her household, along the lines that Gurd 2012 has highlighted for authors such as Cicero. Finally, a detailed reading of the programmatic [Tib.] 3.13 shows Sulpicia reaching out to the Roman literary community of which she was not allowed full membership, and inviting women readers in particular to engage with her in textual collaboration.

Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici, 2019

The ager Campanus, once celebrated as the most fertile land in Italy, fell on hard economic times... more The ager Campanus, once celebrated as the most fertile land in Italy, fell on hard economic times during the fourth century A.D. This article shows how Paulinus of Nola, praising his patron saint Felix, redefines Campania's felicitas in terms of spiritual, rather than agricultural, productivity.
—For a full electronic offprint, please contact me at fieldian@umich.edu.

In A. Augoustakis and R.J. Littlewood (eds.), Campania in the Flavian poetic imagination (Oxford University Press), 2019

This is the final submitted version of my chapter, with the addition of a few paragraphs (pp. 8–1... more This is the final submitted version of my chapter, with the addition of a few paragraphs (pp. 8–10) that I did not have room for in print.

ABSTRACT: In 1418, Poggio Bracciolini, a papal secretary attending the Council of Constance on the border of Germany and Switzerland, sent a manuscript (Matritensis Bibl. Nat. 3678) containing Statius’ Siluae back to Italy. For Dante, a century before, the famous epic poet of the Thebaid had been a native of Toulouse (Purg. 21.81–90), but it was revealed in the Siluae that he was, in fact, a Neapolitan. Abbamonte 2015 has begun to survey the impact of the discovery of the Siluae on the intellectual culture of Naples in this period. This article offers more detailed examination of Statius’ influence on Neapolitan Latin poets like Giovanni Pontano (1429–1503) and Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530), and the way they portray their relationships with the city.

Ramus, 2018

Scholars tend to assume that most of the people who gathered at Cimitile for the annual festival ... more Scholars tend to assume that most of the people who gathered at Cimitile for the annual festival of St. Felix would not have been able to appreciate the allusive literary technique of the Natalicia, the poems that Paulinus of Nola recited there in honor of the saint each year. It is important to remember, though, that many classical texts would also have been performed in this type of popular environment. Virgil’s works were adapted for the theatre, and Paulinus’ contemporaries (e.g. Jer. Ep. 21.13, Aug. Serm. 241.5) criticized the influence of these Virgilian entertainments on their fellow Christians. In this article, I argue that Paulinus presents his Natalicia as an alternative to the dramatic forms in which Virgil appeared on the late antique stage.

Arion, 2017

On the reception of Horace (mainly the Satires) in the work of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño ... more On the reception of Horace (mainly the Satires) in the work of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003).

Maximianus’ fifth elegy recounts a failed erotic encounter between the Roman poet and an unnamed ... more Maximianus’ fifth elegy recounts a failed erotic encounter between the Roman poet and an unnamed Greek Girl during an ambassadorial mission to Constantinople in the middle of the sixth century. The poem is infamous for its graphic portrayal of male erectile dysfunction, but this paper draws attention to a specific reference to a medical disorder affecting the female body. More precisely, we argue that the ‘grauior morbus’ by which Maximianus says his lover must be oppressed at 5.108 is an allusion to the affliction known in antiquity as uterine suffocation (hysterikē apnoia: cf. Gal. Loc. Aff. 6.5, Aët. Tetr. 16.70). As our reading will show, ancient medical authors provide a new context for interpreting the Greek Girl’s comments about sexual reproduction as part of contemporary debates about ascetic renunciation.

In Scott McGill and Joseph M. Pucci (edd.), Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Lat... more In Scott McGill and Joseph M. Pucci (edd.), Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity (Heidelberg: Winter, 2016).

Illinois Classical Studies 40.1: 185-205, 2015

This article explains how Virgil’s traditional association with Naples inspired the fourteenth-ce... more This article explains how Virgil’s traditional association with Naples inspired the fourteenth-century humanist poets Francesco Petrarca and Giovanni Boccaccio to set their own Virgilian eclogues in the same city. Petrarch began his Bucolicum Carmen by composing an allegorical eclogue about the death of his patron Robert of Anjou, the King of Naples; and in imitation of this poem, his admiring friend Boccaccio later wrote a series of Neapolitan eclogues depicting the events that followed Robert’s death. As Petrarch and Boccaccio each had different relationships with Naples, it will be shown that the city represents their respective ideals of poetic otium.

Illinois Classical Studies 40.1: 85-90, 2015

Introduction to the special section of Illinois Classical Studies 40.1 (2015) 85-205. The papers ... more Introduction to the special section of Illinois Classical Studies 40.1 (2015) 85-205. The papers are based on those presented at an organizer-refereed panel at the 144th Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association in Seattle in January 2013.

Journal of Early Christian Studies 22.4: 569-85 (copyright Johns Hopkins University Press), 2014

Orientius’s Commonitorium contains a well-known passage describing the damage done to the landsca... more Orientius’s Commonitorium contains a well-known passage describing the damage done to the landscape of Gaul following the barbarian invasions of the early fifth century. This article examines the juxtaposition of the ruined physical world and the spiritual world beyond in the Commonitorium and three other poetic texts from this period — the Epigramma Paulini, Ad Coniugem, and De Prouidentia Dei. Compared to his contemporaries, Orientius is shown to be less absolute in his renunciation of the world around him. Situating these works in the ecclesiastical context of Gaul in the fifth century, I argue that Orientius offers a pastoral perspective on the Christian's relationship with the wider world, whereas his fellow poets represent the more exclusive views of the emerging ascetic elite.

Classical Quarterly 64.2: 808-20 (copyright Cambridge University Press), 2014

Classica et Mediaevalia 64: 269-85, 2013

This article examines Prudentius’s representation of the virgin martyr Eulalia of Mérida as a med... more This article examines Prudentius’s representation of the virgin martyr Eulalia of Mérida as a medium of the divine Word. Contemporary accounts of Christ’s incarnation emphasized the role of the virgin body in introducing the Word to flesh. Drawing attention to these important influences on the poet, my reading will demonstrate that Prudentius portrays Eulalia as an example of how divinity can be manifested in physical things. It is in this context, I argue, that we should understand the famous passage in which Eulalia describes her martyred body as a text inscribed with Christ (3.136-40).

In C.E. Newlands and J.F. Miller, eds., A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell) 100-13., 2014

This chapter examines the reception of Ovid’s erotic and exilic elegies in the Latin literature o... more This chapter examines the reception of Ovid’s erotic and exilic elegies in the Latin literature of late antiquity (fourth to sixth centuries CE). Revising Hermann Fränkel’s thesis of Ovid as a “poet between two worlds,” it draws particular attention to a number of examples in which late antique authors allude to Ovid as a means of reflecting on the transitions taking place in their own time, with the emergence of Christianity and the disintegration of the Roman Empire. Texts discussed include Rutilius Namatianus, De Reditu; Dracontius, Satisfactio; Orientius, Commonitorium; and the elegiac collection of Maximianus.

Arethusa 43.3: 439-60, 2010

A Cronaca published in Bollettino di Studi Latini 45.2 (2015) 705-8.

The third annual conference of the International Society for Late Antique Literary Studies (ISLAL... more The third annual conference of the International Society for Late Antique Literary Studies (ISLALS) will be held at TORCH, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, on 1-2 July 2015. This conference, on the topic of ‘local connections’, will explore the place of literature in the shifting geography of late antiquity. The transfer of imperial power away from Rome and the founding of Constantinople in the early fourth century had a profound effect on the literary culture of the ancient Mediterranean. In the west, this is the era in which ‘Roman’ literature can be seen to become ‘Latin’ literature, as authors and readers spread out from the capital to form regional literary communities in other parts of Italy, Gaul, Spain, and Africa. Greek literature had been produced in these sorts of local contexts for a much longer period of time, but in the east as well, new centers of literary activity were emerging in late antiquity. Papers will therefore examine the ways in which local landscapes and communities are represented in late antique literary texts.

The 2015 ISLALS conference is generously supported by the Oxford Faculty of Classics, the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, and the Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity. To register to attend, please email Ian Fielding (ian.fielding@classics.ox.ac.uk) by Wednesday, 10 June. A delegate fee (covering the cost of catering) of £6 per day can be paid in cash on arrival at the conference.

As a point of intersection between the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, Campania was an imp... more As a point of intersection between the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, Campania was an important centre of artistic and intellectual activity from the second century BC, one in which some of the most notable works of ‘Roman’ literature were composed and set. The aim of this conference is to examine how the distinctive environment of Campania shaped, and was shaped by, the works of literature and art that were produced in the region.

With the wealth of ancient textual and material evidence that survives from Campania, this event will provide an opportunity for specialists from across a wide disciplinary spectrum to investigate the various modes of interaction within the region’s creative communities. Papers will explore the correspondences between different forms of cultural practice – literary, material, and visual – in Campania, and the role of those different practices in the formation of regional ‘micro-identities’, from antiquity to the early modern period. This interdisciplinary approach will not only show how writers and artists responded to Campania’s natural and man-made landscapes, but also demonstrate that literature and visual art were themselves used as a means of articulating the identities of local people and places.

The influence of Greek and Latin epic poetry pervades the spaces of Campania – from mythical locations such as Lake Avernus and the cave of the Cumaean Sibyl, to the paintings, mosaics, and graffiti preserved in the buildings of Pompeii. Papers at this meeting will give particular attention to these and to other sites, in which the local and trans-local (Greek, Roman, Oscan) aspects of the region’s identity are juxtaposed. Another objective of the conference is to draw attention to the influence of Epicurean philosophy on Campania’s ancient culture. The presence of Hellenistic intellectuals such as Philodemus of Gadara helped to characterise the region as a place of philosophical retreat and contentment during the first century BC. Attention will be given to the variety of contexts in which Epicureanism is evoked, including the architecture of Campanian villas, and in epigraphic poetry.

In addition, this event will develop our appreciation of the importance of Campania for the study of the ancient world by examining its reception in later traditions of antiquity. The existing histories of the cultural life of ancient Campania generally only extend as far as the end of the fourth century AD (D’Arms 1970). As a result, there has been little enquiry into the question of whether, and how, classical culture was preserved in the region after the Roman Empire. Speakers at the proposed conference will demonstrate the influence of local poets such as Virgil and Statius on post-classical authors such as Paulinus of Nola. Furthermore, emphasis will be placed on the revival of ancient culture in the literary, artistic, and architectural works that were produced in Campania during the medieval and Early Modern periods.

The British School at Rome provides the ideal context in which to pursue these interdisciplinary objectives. There is a distinguished tradition of the study of Campania by BSR scholars (Frederiksen/Purcell 1984; Arthur 2002), and the proposed conference would also contribute to the School’s prioritised research theme, ‘Rethinking the Bay of Naples’. Through these collaborations, it will be possible to understand the impact of Campania’s ancient culture in a broader perspective.

Speakers: Dr Bianca De Divitiis (Napoli Fed. II); Prof Marilynn Desmond (SUNY Binghamton); Dr Peter Heslin (Durham); Prof Peter Knox (UC Boulder); Prof Carole Newlands (UC Boulder); Dr Zahra Newby (Warwick); Alison Pollard (Oxford); Dr J.J.L. Smolenaars (Amsterdam); Dr Diana Spencer (Birmingham); Prof Dennis Trout; Prof Steven Tuck (Miami Ohio); Prof Carlo Vecce (Napoli L'Orientale).""

This paper was presented at the Boston Area Roman Studies conference at Boston University on Apri... more This paper was presented at the Boston Area Roman Studies conference at Boston University on April 21 2017; an abridged version was delivered at the Globalizing Ovid conference at Shanghai Normal University on May 31 2017. It was translated into Chinese by Dr Kai Kang, with the assistance of Dr Jinyu Liu and Dr Ying Xiong, and published in the Wenhui Literary Supplement on May 26 2017 (http://wenhui.news365.com.cn/html/2017-05/26/node_1613.html).

This paper was presented as part of a reading class on Tibullus 3, organized by Laurel Fulkerson ... more This paper was presented as part of a reading class on Tibullus 3, organized by Laurel Fulkerson and Stephen Heyworth at Oxford in Trinity Term 2015. I enjoyed writing it and have thought about revising it for publication, but I am not sure that I will do so now.