Mark Williams
Calvin College, Classics, Faculty Member
- Professor of Classical Languages, Calvin University, Grand Rapids, MI.edit
Research Interests:
Friendship in the works of Ratherius of Verona.
Analysis of the friendship language in Catullus Carm. 50.
Research Interests:
A reading of Catullus' carmen 45 emphasizing the rhetorical figure of frigus; Cupid's sneezes are in effect critical comments on the lovers' rhetoric.
Contemporary approachs to the Liber Confortatorius seem too easy, too conveniently suited to modern expectations, and too little cognizant of the fact that love and friendship in the medieval world were more different from our own than we... more
Contemporary approachs to the Liber Confortatorius seem too easy, too conveniently suited to modern expectations, and too little cognizant of the fact that love and friendship in the medieval world were more different from our own than we sometimes wish. What emerges if we read the Liber with an eye to other literature of friendship, including that describing friendships between men and women, rather than simply searching it for hints of scandal? If we attempt thus to distance ourselves from our modern notions and preconceptions, what emerges from a reading of the Liber is Goscelin’s reliance on many of the topoi of friendship that had been developed over the centuries, going back to the early Carolingian era, and even as far as Cicero. What is somewhat—but not entirely—new is Goscelin’s application of these topoi to his relationship with a person of the opposite sex.
